abor. Land, and Law 



A Search for the Missing Wealth of 
ihe Working Poor 



W. A. PHILLIPS 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



®ipp. Gfopjjrigfyt 3jto._. 



Shelf % 



UNITED STATES OF AI 



LABOR, LAND AND LAW. 



LABOR, LAND AND LAW 



A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING WEALTH 



OF THE WORKING POOR 



BY 

WILLIAM A. PHILLIPS 

MEMBER COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS, FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS, AND ON BANKING AND 
CURRENCY, FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS 



APR 191886 'L, 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1886 






x cA< 



COPYRIGHT, DEC, 1885, BY 
W. A. PHILLIPS. 



GRANT & FAIRES 
PHILADELPHIA 



TO 

MY DEAR WIFE 

ANNA B. S. PHILLIPS 

WHO HAS VERY MATERIALLY ASSISTED IN 

THE PREPARATION OF THIS WORK, IT 

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 

BY THE AUTHOR 



AUTHOE'S NOTE. 



Since this work was first undertaken questions involving the 
rights of workingmen and the forms of landholding have steadily 
grown in general interest. For the better study of these subjects 
the facts herewith submitted have been collated. Care has been 
taken to present in as readable shape as possible, a large part of 
what is known of the various kinds of land tenure among men. 
The effects of the different forms of landholding on the indus- 
trial interests, have been traced, and, also, the origin and growth 
of many of those individual and family rights which have left 
their marks on our social system. Slavery, vassalage, serfdom, 
and the various modes of employing and remunerating or robbing 
labor have been placed before the reader, and the change from 
master workman to capitalist employer, the organization of cap- 
ital, the formation and growth of guilds, trades unions and labor 
societies, considered. 

A long experience amidst the wonderful developments of the 
Western states, and the privilege of having taken part in the 
public discussion and consideration of great economic questions, 
while they have furnished an interesting field for observation 
and study, have also tended to modify previous opinions and 
mould the views which are here presented. The works of many 
other writers on the subject have been referred to and discussed. 
The purpose being to throw all possible light on the subject, their 
books have been analysed in all frankness. It is the hope of the 
writer that the references to them may not be considered unfair 
or uncourteous. 

Washington, D. C, December, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 

Raising the wind — The relations of law to labor and land — Distribu- 
tions of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property — 
Natural and commercial price of labor — Contracts as a basis for 
society, versus the doctrine of right and wrong — Inventors only 
enjoy limited rights — Chattel titles to land a monopoly — Titles 
based on discovery, conquest or first use — Causes of inequality 
between rich and poor — Organized capital and corporations — Gam- 
bling in stocks and breadstuffs — Slavery and land monopoly twin 
robbers of labor — Prof. Sumner — Walker — Henry George, .... 



CHAPTER I. 

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SYSTEM OF ANCIENT ISRAEL, 

Scope of the Hebrew laws — The patriarchate the primitive govern- 
ment of the Semitic races — Laws framed to regulate land tenure 
before land was possessed — Available area of Judea — Distinction 
between property in the country and in walled cities — Land nation- 
alization rejected — Family tenure of land — The year of jubilee — 
Usurpations of the monarchy — Tithes and taxes — The peculiar and 
advantageous features of Jewish polity, 30 

CHAPTER H. 

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

Similarity of populations on the Nile and Euphrates — Landlords and 
rent in Egypt — All below the privileged army and priesthood had 
to work — Only one occupation allowed — Every citizen's home and 
business registered, in Ancient Egypt — Legislation against borrow- 

ix 



CONTENTS. 

ing money — In Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the 
sole tyrants — The king as landlord — Persian political economy — 
Laborers should not be robbed beyond the point when they would 
cease to produce — Carthage a combination or corporation for mer- 
chandising, piracy and slave dealing — Carthage called a republic, but 
drifted into three classes: slaves, a mercenary army and an aristoc- 
racy — Theory and practice of government in Greece — Land laws of 
Lycurgus — Gold and silver banish&l — Constant struggle between 
the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece — Solon and Athens — 
Debt on land and slaves abolished — Legal value of silver coin in- 
creased by law — Timocracy, or man's rights measured by bis property 
— Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats, surrenders to 
tyrants — Rome a robbers' den — Reduction of the aristocracy and rise 
of the republic — Division of land among the people — Seven acres 
enough — Land assigned on two year terms — Gradual absorption of 
land and money by the equestrian order — Slaves take the place of free 
laborers — Death of Tiberius Gracchus — Overthrow of the republic 
— Citizens subsidized — Swallowed up by despotism and immorality, 46 



CHAPTER III. 

CONDITION OF LABOR AND LAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

Aryan emigration to Europe — Allodial title the distinction for free- 
men — The village council the ancient foundation of government — 
Division of conquered lands — Women's property rights invaded — 
The feudal system erected on breach of public trust — Primogeniture 
— Freemen reduced to villeinage — Game laws for the pleasure of 
aristocrats — Social rights invaded — Marriages between commoners 
and nobles declared unlawful — Laws of escheat — The civil list — The 
" Younger Son " — Banditti — Parliaments represent landowners — 
Guilds and trades societies — Free cities and towns — Gunpowder as a 
democratic element — Titles the insignia of luxurious vagabondage, . 82 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM AS ITS PRINCIPLES AFFECT SOCIETY AND 
ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT. 

Religious belief a pillar of law — The status and power of Christian 
nations — Religious political economy — Does Christianity teach 
socialism — Unholy alliance of church and state — A church founded 
on capital ncci Bsarily corrupt and idolatrous — Dates of the introduc- 
tion of Christianity to Europe — Monastic orders — Slavery and 



CONTENTS. XI 

woman's rights — Polygamy — Reformations — Sects — Denominations 
- — Agnostics and the supernatural — Prof. Sumner's doctrine of a 
" free state " and the law of " contracts " — Startling effect of " ecclesi- 
astical prejudice " — Dives and Lazarus, 108 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MAHOMETAN SYSTEM, AND THE GOVERNMENTS AND FORMS OF 
SOCIETY FOUNDED ON IT. 

Arabia the blest and curst — The robber of the desert a founder of em- 
pires — Democratic tendencies of Mahometanism — Its foundation — 
Plunder and polygamy — Furnished an occupation for the large class 
who seek to subsist by war or their wits — Slavery legalized — Women 
degraded — War on property rights of women— Mahometan laws of 
taxation — Land tenure — Divorce — Wills forbidden — -Temperance 
and abstinence by law — Licentiousness established on earth and 
deified in heaven — Pure Mahometanism, or Theism — Worship of the 
Prophet an innovation — Christianity and Mahometanism the only 
cosmopolite religions — Reformations in the Mahometan church — 
The Wahabees — Mahdis — Causes of Mahometan decay, 131 



CHAPTER VI. 

LAND AND LABOR IN RUSSIA AND ASIATIC COUNTRIES. 

Chattel title to land unknown— Struggles of Turanian and Tartar — 
Central Asia rendered a desert by misgovernment — Rents and graz- 
ing taxes — Tartar greenbacks — India the seat of allodial title and 
village government — Emperors, kings, warriors and corporations, 
merely organized robbers — Tax collecting the chief feature of impe- 
rialism — The British attempt to plant landed aristocracy in India — 
Lord Cornwallis — From Yorktown to Bengal — Sale of land for debt 
formerly unknown in India — Land speculation introduced — " Mu- 
tiny " — China and " cheap labor " — Dense population — Chinese land 
tenure — Hung Ki — Rate of rent — No landed aristocracy — Banks in 
China — Paper money — Pawnbrokers — Secret societies — Rates of in- 
terest — Civil service reform — Opium vs. whiskey — Russia a network 
of colonies — Great and Little Russia — The Mir — The vetche — The 
village commune — Land systems of Eastern and Western Europe 
compared — Usurpations of the Tzars — Overthrow of popular rights 
and government — Recent attempts to liberate Russia from aristocrats 
and tyrants — Russian politics — Despotism and nihilism, 155 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE VII. 

THE LAND SYSTEM OF MODERN EUROPE. 

Lavergne — Agrarian legislation of this century — Lawns and deer parks 
versus cottages — French small holdings — Number of proprietors in 
France and Britain — Condition of the French peasantry — Exports 
of England and France — Effect of small farms on wages — Oppressive 
debts of the aristocracy — Improvements under large and small hold- 
ings — Code Napoleon — French law of inheritance — Belgium — Lave- 
leye — Made lands — Gross production of a hectare — Spade husbandry 
— Short and long leases — Average food of workingmen in Europe — 
Spain — Aristocracy and decay of husbandry—Average wages — Afor- 
amento — Portuguese tenure — Austria Hungary — Size of estates — 
Number of cultivating farmers — Tenants and farm laborers — Wages 
and work of men and women — Italy — Eelative population — Number 
of landowners — Tenants and leases — Eent — Wages — Production — 
Land tenure in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden — Number and 
kind of landowners — Size of estates — Food of working people — ■ 
Wages — Emigration from Scandinavian nations — Prussia — Per cent, 
of landowners — Price of land — Abolition of Villeinage — Agrarian 
legislation — Eent — Food — Wages, 199 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

Cultivated and uncultivated areas — Acreocracy — Extent and value of 
aristocratic holdings — Number of landowners — Urban and country 
population — Eent during six hundred years — Prices of wheat and 
beef — Aristocratic debts saddled on the people — Primogeniture and 
the younger sons — Loss of cottage and pasture privileges by working- 
men — Law of parish settlement — Food and wages — No law to secure 
a tenant for his improvements — A " retired tenant farmer " — Board 
and wages three centuries ago — Prices — Watt Tyler — Growth of 
cities — Manufacture and commerce — Mr. Giffen searching for the 
laborer's wealth — Mallock — Modern wages — Houses and food — Ire- 
land — Arthur Young — Subjection of Ireland — Landlords in tripli- 
cate — Noblemen, perpetual landholders, middlemen and cultivators 
— Eents in Ireland — Eedpath — Tenants and evictions — Number of 
land proprietors — Battersby and compensation — Argyle and Henry 
George — The duke as a philosopher and as a sheep raiser — Defense 
of British aristocracy — Agricultural decadence — Growth of manufac- 
tures and commerce — Food produced and food imported — Eival 
aristocracy of money, 233 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

CHAPTEE IX. 

THE ABORIGINAL AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND TENURE. 

Agricultural and roving populations — Tribal government — Aboriginal 
money and exchange — Tribal boundaries — Homes and hunting 
grounds — Male and female occupations — Sparse populations — Decay 
and degradation of the Aborigines under European pressure — Relig- 
ious beliefs — Rights in land not bought and sold — Communal land, 
but individual property — Caribbee and Arowaks — Three classes of 
Aborigines — Land laws of Cherokees and Choctaws — The soil com- 
mon, but improvements personal property — John Ross — Corn Plant 
— Bushyhead — Land in severalty prescribed by the whites — Treaties 
used to secure foothold and land — Repudiated when the Indians 
grow weak — Washington — Gen. Knox — Chief Justice Marshall — 
Cass and Jackson versus the Supreme Court — Indian inertia — Zuni 
and its rich man — A Caribbee political economist, 278 

CHAPTER X. 

ERA OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA — 
RIGHT OF DISCOVERY — RIGHT OF CONQUEST. 

European discoverers visit America for gold, silver and trade — A cen- 
tury of robbery, rapine and murder — Comparison between European 
and American society at date of discovery — Slavery and Las Casas — 
Dates of actual settlement in the West Indies — Dates of actual settle- 
ment in North America — What led to it — Settlements of the North- 
men — Discovery a better title than possession — Conquest on pretense 
of Christianizing — Native rights disregarded — French and Spanish 
colonies fraternize with the natives — English colonies refuse to min- 
gle — The Indian must " go West " — Attempts to plant white aristo- 
cracy — First speculations in sales and gifts of American lands — 
Popes, kings and parliaments granted land they had never seen — 
Colonial boundaries — Annexation, wars of conquest — Treaties — De- 
gradation and extermination — The Henderson purchase — Baron 
Graffenreid — John Locke's constitution — American lords and pala- 
tines — Aristocracy — Slavery — Free settlements, 299 



CHAPTER XL 

HISTORY OF THE LAND POLITY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Land tenure shaped in colonial days — Conflicting colonial claims — 
Continental Congress — Plea to pay expenses of Revolutionary War 



XIV CONTENTS. 

from public lands — First land bounty for soldiers — Proposed North- 
west colony — "Washington's landed estates — The Walpole Land 
Company — The Ohio Company — The Quebec bill — Ordinance for 
the Northwest territory — Madison's comments — First modes of land 
sale — French commons — John Adams — Property in soil the founda- 
tion of power — Land sold from 1796 to 1885 — Proceeds in money — 
Less than a year's customs and revenue — The surplus funds — The 
years of great land speculation — Borrowing public money to tuy 
public lands — Distribution of the proceeds — Graduation bill — Grants 
of lands to states — To schools and colleges — To canals — To corpora- 
tions — Preemption law — Homestead law — Great and small land 
speculators — Squatters — Eesidue of public lands — Frauds under a 
bad system — Texas and her lands — Mexican grants — Letter from the 
commissioner — Aggregate homesteads filed and taken — Timber cult- 
ure grants — Area disposed for bounty land warrants — Number of 
farms in the United States — Number of landholders — Of renters — 
Of farm laborers — Gradual transfer of land from settler to land 
speculator, 320 



CHAPTER XII. 

CORPORATIONS. 

Unsatisfactory statistics of corporations — Corporations known to Roman 
law — Early town corporations — East India Company — Supposed legal 
powers of corporations — Plea of vested rights — A legislature cannot 
grant power that strips its successors of authority— Public and pri- 
vate companies — Corporations a subordinate power of the State — 
Eminent domain — Railroads public highways — A curious charter — 
Craftsmen employers and corporate employers — Money as an em- 
ployer — Crafts, guilds and trades unions — William Pitt — Imaginary 
political necessity for cheap labor— Organization of capital in cor- 
porations— The organization of labor— John Stuart Mill on co-op- 
eration—Consolidation among the autocrats of transportation- 
Stocks, assets, liabilities and income of railroads — Miraculous expan- 
sion of capital under the lingering of corporations— Revenues of rail- 
road companies— A greater power than the State— Army of em- 
ployees under direction of a few— National debts— Corporate debts 
greater than all public debts combined— Banking on the confidence 
plan— Dealers in money becoming jobbers in labor— The accu- 
mulated property in the country and who owns it— Piratical stock 
jobbing— Bights of individuals and powers of the State threatened 
by corporations, 3qq 



CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XIII. 

SHADOWS OF THE COMING AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY. 

The fetters of want — American and French republics — Free and slave 
labor in the young American republic — Aristocracy as first planted 
almost submerged — Failure of political amendments to secure equal 
power to landless freedmen — The exodus — Capitalist and wage 
worker — Duke of Argyle — Necessity of maintaining republican sim- 
plicity — Great increasing wealth — Where it goes — Eich, middle and 
poorer classes — Wages and incomes of tradesmen — Aggregate accu- 
mulated wealth — What workingmen have no interest in — W r hatthey 
have a small interest in — Gradually ceasing to own lands and lots — 
Statistics of labor and of employees, professional men and capitalists — 
Family and individual property — Laws of inheritance — Life — Prop- 
erty — Reputation — Interest and compound interest — The cumulative 
power of capital — Atkinson on national debts — Paper credits carry 
on business — Profits of directing energy — Capital which is used, and 
capital which is of little use — Non-producing classes always an aris- 
tocracy — We must cultivate respect for honest poverty, 396 



CHAPTER XIV. 

REMEDIES. 

Is the body politic disordered — Great wealth cannot insure national 
stability — Inequality in condition steadily developing — Workers not 
getting their share — What has caused the unequal distribution of 
wealth — In the early republic no great millionaires and few beggars 
— Number of monopolies embraced in land monopoly — Allodial title 
— Two pleas for rent— j^an improvements constitute an alienating 
lien — Bastiat — The natural and indestructible powers of the soil — 
What rights in land are in accord with public policy — Length of 
tenure necessary to secure high improvements — Land should only be 
held by occupying cultivators — Reduction of farms with increase of 
population — Money should be refused speculating investment in land, 
or investment to secure rent — Henry George's plan — Tax and rent 
must not be permitted to increase the price of bread and meat — Tax 
must come out of accumulated capital — Large farms and landholders 
— Land speculation and wholesale farming should be taxed out of 
existence — The destruction of artificial land values no calamity — 
What is just and what is practicable — Cyrus Field and Henry George 
— Timber lands — Grazing lands — Mineral lands — Railroad land 
grants — Various communal experiments — Mormonism — Icaria — 



XVI CONTEXTS. 

Robert Owen — Fourierism — Shakers — Oneida perfectionists — Indi- 
vidualism and socialism — How are wages to be raised — Combination 
and organization — Law, the servant of labor — Assassination and 
dynamite the suicide of labor interests — What is the legitimate 
business of government — How to control railroad and other corpora- 
tions — Justice but not pauperism — Public improvements — Homes for 
workingmen — Will-making and inheritance, 424 



LABOR, LAND AND LAW. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

Raising the wind — The relations of law to labor and land — Distribution 
of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property — Natural and 
commercial price of labor — Contracts as a basis for society, versus the 
doctrine of right and wrong — Inventors only enjoy limited rights — 
Chattel titles to land a monopoly — Titles based on discovery, conquest 
or first use — Causes of inequality between rich and poor — Organized 
capital and corporations — Gambling in stocks and breadstuff's — Slavery 
and land monopoly twin robbers of labor — Prof. Sumner — Walker — 
Henry George. 

It is related that a certain Eastern potentate fell into 
the impecunious condition, common to many of his prede- 
cessors, and all of his successors, and set his wits to work to 
devise a remedy. A farmer of imposts who had often aided 
him, in this dilemma came to his rescue. He offered him 
sixty thousand tomans for all the winds that should ever blow 
over Cashmere. The monarch at first affected to be staggered 
at the proposition. He was unable to find anything in prece- 
dents to warrant it, but, although a believer in the doctrine 
that whatever is, is right, he was forced to admit that a mon- 
arch may introduce useful innovations. Of course, it was 
assumed that he was the supreme owner and disposer of all 
things in his dominions, not only for his own brief, erratic 
span of life, but for all time, and so he came to the conclusion 
that as everything in the world had been sold which could be 
sold, there was no good reason why the winds, unstable 

1 



2 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

though they might be, should be exempted if a purchaser 
could be found. After a proper amount of preliminary hag- 
gling a sale was made and the transaction legalized by all that 
signatures, seals and parchment could do for it. 

Before the public had fairly got over laughing at the 
absurdity of this novel bargain, the owner of the wind issued 
a proclamation forbidding all persons iu Cashmere from using 
his wind to turn their windmills, winnow their corn, propel 
their vessels or employ it in any other manner, until they had 
first entered into agreements with him and obtained leases for 
the various localities, covenanting to pay certain amounts for 
the privilege. Then the laughing turned to lamentation. 
The monarch met the torrent of petitions and complaints by 
affecting to deplore the circumstance. He could not, of course, 
foresee all that had occurred, but his sacred word was involved. 
Rulers of that type are usually very particular about their 
sacred word. Driven to desperation, the inhabitants contrib- 
uted the amount that had been paid for the wind and tendered 
it to their sovereign so that this unheard of transaction could 
be cancelled. 

The matter was not to be so easily arranged. The owner 
of the winds of Cashmere would not think of such a thing. 
He had acquired a vested right in them. Since it had become 
purchasable the wind had greatly risen, in price at least. 
Wind stocks were on an upward market. The owner insisted 
that his title was good. He did not claim it merely by his 
right of discovery of the commercial value of the wind, or 
that he had been the first to preempt this privilege, but he 
had fairly bought it from the representative of government, 
and declared that his title was begirt, and founded on all that 
was sacred in law or the theory of eminent domain and 
supreme authority. It would be altogether unfair to ask him 
to surrender this valuable privilege for anything less than 
what it might bring him in case he should be allowed to keep 
it. The proposition of the people was merely a bald scheme 



RAISING THE WIND. 6 

of robbery. It was subversive of all property rights ; was 
socialistic, agrarian and revolutionary ; and to force him to 
accept of a price so inadequate would strike a fatal blow at 
the best interests of society and undermine the whole fabric 
on which the rights of property rested. 

This reasoning was, of course, entirely conclusive to the 
monarch, who was undoubtedly the confederate of the farmer 
of imposts, but, as human endurance can only be stretched to 
certain limits, it was agreed between them that a fair price for 
the wind, at that date, would be ten times what was originally 
paid for it. This amount was finally raised by a long-suffering 
people, who merely exacted a promise from the commercial 
monarch that he would never sell the wind again, but permit 
it in God's providence to blow over them free and unrestricted 
as of yore. 

I have introduced this incident with the hope of throwing 
some light on the preliminary question — What is property? 
The public mind has become a good deal confused about the 
meaning of the term, and questions of meum and tuum embar- 
rassed by doubtful words and more doubtful doctrines of 
political economy. Originally the word "property" referred 
to the quality of a thing, but as it is Avith its modern meaning 
we have to do, we find Webster's definition of it to be "The 
exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing, 
ownership;" and adds from Shakespeare, "To take as one's 
own — to appropriate." A ssuming that property is the exclusive 
right (or power) to possess, enjoy or dispose of a thing, the 
question occurs as to what things are justly subject to indi- 
vidual interest and will. Are the winds of the air, the waters 
of the deep or the surface of the earth, things from which one 
man can justly exclude all others, or which he has any right 
to speculate in or buy and sell ? Can anything properly be 
treated as property but that which is produced by individual 
labor, effort or genius? It is now getting to be pretty gener- 
ally conceded, according to the morals, religion and law of the 



4 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

highest types of modern civilization, that a man has a right to 
the proceeds of his own labor. It must not be forgotten that 
this is by no means universal among mankind, and that little 
more than twenty years have elapsed since, in our own country, 
a portion of the population, nearly ten per cent, of it in fact, 
and they of the producing classes, had no right to the proceeds 
of their own labor, did not even own their own persons, and 
that local law placed the ownership of the proceeds of their 
labor in the hands of a privileged and aristocratic class. 
When, therefore, we come to consider the question of property, 
we are forced to consider another element besides natural 
resources and human labor, and that is law. Property does 
not so much consist in what a man may have in his hands at 
the time, as in that which is respected as property by the com- 
munity in which he lives : that which law will protect him 
in ; that which the law declares to be his, and to the extent, 
and in the manner, and for the purposes for which the law 
declares it to be his, and subject to its changes and limitations. 
In estimating the foundation of property or wealth, according 
to the present accepted maxims of society, we of necessity 
include the three great elements of labor, land and law. 

There are but two titles to property of any kind : law or 
force. The old free-booting maxim of " They may take who 
have the power, and they may keep who can," or the bulwarks 
established by organized and enlightened law : power, or the 
highest human sense of justice. A strong brute tears from the 
grasp of a weak one the food it is eating, and the latter 
relinquishes it with a whine. The eagle seizes from the fish 
hawk the trout the latter has piratically taken from the deep, 
and thus the robber from the robber rends the prey. In the 
dusky pool the big fish eat the little ones. In barbarous society 
the strong oppress the weak, but there never was a condition 
of human society so barbarous that a sense of justice did not 
remain to protest against wrong. Human nature, as light and 
opportunity is given, seeks protection in organized society. 



man's right to his labor. 5 

We can rejoice, therefore, that at the present stage in the 
progress of our country, the legitimate fruit of a man's labor 
is recognized as his exclusive property. It is his, not only as 
an abstract proposition of right, but as a proposition entitled to 
the protection of law. It does not militate against this doc- 
trine that he may, occasionally, be cheated out of a part of it. 
He is no longer the victim of despotic violence, and intelligent, 
progressive law is rapidly entering every field where chicanery 
is endeavoring to do the work once done by violence. 

What are the products of human labor? The value of a 
day's labor is what it can under ordinary circumstances produce. 
Some men can produce more in a day than others. Skilled 
labor is worth more than unskilled labor, because you have to 
add to the value of each day of such labor the time and expense 
of educating and preparing the workman for his work. All 
of these circumstances enter into the commercial value of a 
man's labor, but do not destroy the principle that a man has 
a right to what his labor fairly produces. In order to work 
effectively, especially in dense and civilized society, laborers 
need to have certain privileges, and to use certain appliances 
which may or may not be the laborer's own. The laborer is 
thus forced to earn not only as much as will furnish him with 
food and clothing, but enough to pay for the use of the appli- 
ances, machinery or improvements he uses. Accumulated 
capital thus becomes a sharer in what is produced by labor, 
and if the distribution is perfectly fair, society can exist and 
flourish. It is just here the wrongs of modern society begin. 
If the streets were hemmed in with palaces and filled with 
gold, men and women would suffer and starve for the food and 
clothing of each year, unless some one worked to produce it. 
Labor alone produces. Capital at best is inert and can only 
facilitate. Why should it distribute the proceeds? The 
capital accumulated yesterday is not so much entitled to the 
consideration of society as the living, toiling, suffering pro- 
ducing labor of to-day. Capital is entitled to a share of the 



6 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

profits, but before they can be properly distributed, a sufficient 
amount to provide for the laborer and his family, according to 
the conditions of the society in which he lives, must be 
deducted. The theory of one school of political economists is 
that labor must use capital and appliances before it can pro- 
duce. Instead of labor hiring capital or appliances, as a mat- 
ter of fact capital and appliances hire labor. They do more : 
they fix the price. Capital, moreover, is restive under any 
interference with its bargains. It insists that the law of sup- 
ply and demand is the only thing that should regulate the 
price of labor. This is the fundamental basis of modern 
theories of political economy. It is the law of selfishness 
organized. There may be a certain degree of conscience or 
consideration on the part of an employer mixed with it, but 
these are purely accidental or unnecessary elements. If a man 
with capital or able to be in active business only wants five 
laborers and is offered ten, it is his privilege to haggle with 
them, and reduce the price from one dollar to fifty cents ; and, 
on the other hand, if two capitalists, or men in business, each 
need ten laborers and only ten are offered, they are to bid 
against each other and raise the price, say from fifty cents to 
one dollar. When not interfered with by an outside power, 
or law of organized society, this is the law of supply and 
demand pure and simple. It will be observed, however, that 
capital, acting intelligently under this law of self interest, 
never bids the price of labor much above what it can profitably 
employ it at. On the other hand, it is always the selfish interest 
of capital to get labor as cheap as it can, and thus enhance its 
profits. The operation of this rule must and does work to the 
disadvantage of the laborer. It is the operation of this unre- 
stricted law of selfishness that constantly tends in highly civil- 
ized societies to make the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. 
In a rude or barbarous condition of society the personal 
rights of property are easily defined. The hunter finds and 
kills a wild auimal. Assuming that all things in nature are 



OEGANIZED SELFISHNESS. 7 

the property of man, he claims it by right of first discovery, 
and he and his family eat it, and clothe themselves with its 
skin. He discovers fruits, roots and nuts, which others have 
not found. He catches and spears fish. Even he must have 
capital. He makes and accumulates bows, arrows, knives, 
spears, fishing tackle, a boat, and finally the hut or skin tent 
that shelters him. This home, rude although it may be, he 
considers his own. If he is able, he defends it against all 
comers. Even barbarous society recognizes his right to it. 
He probably does not make it an article of merchandise. He 
certainly does not attempt to sell every foot of earth on which 
it may have stood : that he claims merely by an occupancy- 
right. His right over it ceases when he migrates. In this 
primitive condition of society, we do not find that the posses- 
sor of the rude capital we have described obtains the services 
of some young man, or wanderer without such capital, to use 
his tools, and hunt and fish for both while he slumbers indo- 
lently in his abode. According to the law of supply and 
demand he could do this ; and if it was done in barbarous 
society, we would soon have a lower depth of degradation 
than even barbarism presents to us, and a privileged class, 
contributing but little to the public interests. Barbarous so- 
ciety does not admit of this, and is, therefore, not burdened 
by a large non-productive class. 

Artificial society is something altogether different. Its 
conditions force us to ask if the law of organized selfishness 
is the only possible producer of civilization and luxury ? 
There are not lacking those who tell us that wealth, pros- 
perity and a high degree of civilization can only be pro- 
duced under the rule " every one for himself and the Evil One 
take the hindmost." That emulation to produce its highest 
fruits must be stimulated by the hope of making profit out 
of the ignorant, inexperienced, poverty-stricken and unwary, 
and that law must not be permitted to interfere with the 
sanctities of a bargain, no matter how unfair. 



8 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

Highly civilized and densely populated communities can 
only exist where there are great accumulations of what men call 
property. It is a singular and sad circumstance, moreover, 
that where we find the greatest wealth, we also find the most 
fearful poverty. In our modern civilized society, property, 
when created by human labor, runs into ruts. Those who do 
the hardest work, with few exceptions, get the smallest por- 
tion of its proceeds, and gradually settle to the bottom. 
Those who, by the aid of capital, manage and direct labor, 
live better and are more apt to get rich than those who 
merely labor. Capital, through usury, increases its gains out 
of all proportion to the benefits it confers upon society. When 
a young man in a great city or densely populated commu- 
nity gets old enough to work, if he has not the capital to 
develop his own labor, he must accept what the man who 
has, or coutrols capital, is willing to give him. The political 
economist cries : " Would you compel an employer to give 
more for labor than he can buy it for ?" 

" The real value of a thing 
Is just as much as it will bring." 

In answering such questions intelligently, we must take a 
broader view, and carefully examine the modes of distribu- 
tion and production, and the assumption by capital of the 
power to fix its profits and the wages of labor. Philosophers, 
moralists and lawgivers all tell us that the greatest happiness 
and prosperity of all the component parts of society is a con- 
dition demanded by a just public policy. It is not in accord- 
ance with public j:>olicy that property when created should 
drift into enormous, princely fortunes on one hand ; creating 
pauperism on the other. The laboring producers are entitled 
to a full share of the blessings they create, and any cause of 
unequal distribution of proceeds is wrong, and such opera- 
tions may be properly inquired into. When we find the offi- 
cers of a great corporation, such as a railway company, sitting 



*n 



I 

DIVIDING RAILROAD INCOME. 9 

down to fix expenses and salaries, determining that they 
can only pay a laboring man one dollar per day, or three 
hundred dollars a year; skilled laborers and mechanics six 
hundred ; engineers and conductors ten or twelve hundred, 
and so forth, we may consider it a reasonable and prudent 
management of the great corporate interests intrusted to them. 
If, however, they also vote the president ten or twelve thousand 
dollars a year, the general superintendent eight or ten thousand, 
and each of the board, for certain duties, real and imaginary, 
similar amounts, it might strike an impartial observer as 
hardly a fair distribution of what the enterprise produces. 
When we also find that the capital invested has been dupli- 
cated or triplicated by watered stock ; that mortgages have 
been placed on such properties without adding anything 
to their real or productive value ; that these great interests 
have been distorted and perverted, in order to make real or 
fictitious fortunes for a few men ; when we further see, as a 
result of these proceedings, ruin threatening the enterprise, 
and the laborers and employees so ground by reduced pay for 
their labor that they cannot properly maintain their families, — 
those who have thus mismanaged should be required to give 
a better reason for their oppressive orders than a desire to 
pay heavier dividends on such inflated capital, or greater sal- 
aries to the managers. 

The law of supply and demand as a measure of values is 
only true in certain conditions, and subject to certain limita- 
tions. When we find a condition of society in which nine- 
tenths of the people subsist by hiring their labor, and when 
we find these laborers or producers of the wealth of society, 
instead of growing richer as society grows richer, aggregating 
capital as the wealth of the community they live in increases, 
constantly growing relatively poorer as compared with those 
who own and represent the capital engaged, — the causes which 
lead to this public calamity are also subject matter for legiti- 
mate inquiry. It has been said that there is no necessary an- 



*< 



* 



Vf* 



t 



it) INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

tagonism between labor and capital. They supplement each 
other. All partnerships, to endure, must be perfectly fair, 
and of mutual benefit. Capital, if employed, should increase 
the laborer's wealth. If it does not do this, he is better with- 
out it. In order to preserve society prosperous and continu- 
ous, the laborer must be preserved. All society is interested 
to prevent the accumulation of enormous fortunes out of the 
wealth produced by the exertions of workers for wages. Fol- 
lowing great fortunes we iuevitably find the poorly clad, 
poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly educated, children of the 
laboring classes. In an era of great development they are 
poorly developed. In an era of great luxury they have few 
luxuries. The very grandeur of the civilization they are 
helping to build becomes a mockery to them. It really 
makes them poorer to see the evidences of wealth all around 
them, yet out of their reach. The wide differences of such a 
society may be said to inflict a species of moral degradation 
on them. Living in poorly ventilated houses or hovels, how 
can it benefit them to look at the palaces of the rich ? When, 
in addition to these inequalities, we see an increasing pauper- 
ism developed, we are startled, and must become convinced 
that there are fundamental wrongs existing, and that these dis- 
eases must find a remedy before there can be a healthy condi- 
tion of the body politic. 

Ricardo, in his writings on wages, says : " The natural 
price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the 
laborers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their 
race without either increase or diminution." He also says : 
" The market price of labor is the price which is really paid 
for it, from the natural operation of the proportion of the 
supply to the demand." And again : "It is when the mar- 
ket price of labor exceeds its natural price that the condition 
of the laborer is flourishing and happy, that he has it in his 
power to command a greater proportion of the necessaries 
and enjoyments of life, and, therefore, to rear a healthy and 









RIOARDO. i 1 

numerous family." Aud again : " When the market price of 
labor is below its natural price, the condition of the laborer is 
most wretched." ^ 

The foregoing views will be found almost in the same lan- 
guage in Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations." He is the 
founder of the peculiar theories that have been put in circu- 
lation under the name of "Political Economy." Ricardo 
gave to these theories their extreme but logical sequence. Ac- 
cording to him it is not the interest of laborers that their 
numbers increase, and thus weaken the demand for them. 
Malthus is chiefly distinguished for suggestions in the same 
direction. If this was logically true it would be for the in- 
terest of laborers to produce as little property as possible. If 
the laborer, by reducing the hours of labor from ten to five, 
can enhance the value of what he produces so as to get as 
much for it, why work ten ? The folly of this proposition 
would be best shown if all laborers in a country adopted the 
same rule. There would be just half as much produced, and 
consequently just half as much to distribute. While there 
may be over-production in a few fancy or unusual articles, it 
may be safely assumed that there is never over-production of 
the necessaries of life so long as any considerable class is de- 
prived of them. The evil, therefore, does not lie in over- 
production but in unfair distribution. Under our mercantile- 
system there is no such thing as the natural price of a day's 
labor. Neither can the value of a laborer's day's work be 
measured by what it requires to feed and clothe a laborer and 
his family, because it may take a dollar or ten dollars to do 
that. A system of political economy that suggests that the 
true interests of a laborer are best promoted by having two 
children rather than four, is as monstrous as that doctrine of 
the survival of the fittest which in China takes supposed 
sickly children and drowns them in the canal. A true politi- 
cal economy is that which secures the greatest prosperity and 
happiness of the industrious classes, giving them a proper 



J* 

• 4 

12 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

share of the fruits of their labor, thus enabling them to pur- 
chase a larger number of manufactured articles. 

Prof. Sumner, the political economist of one of our first 
universities, and a fair representative of the class which 
endeavors to preserve the doctrines of Bicardo and Malthus, 
against the innovations of modern thought and ancient morals, 
in his recent work " What social classes, owe each other," 
assumes that they owe nothiug but " civility." His doctrine 
is that the basis of modern civilized society is " Contracts " 
or bargains, and that capital alone produces civilization. On 
page 59 of the work referred to, he says that man, as a brute 
in the state of nature, has nothing, and merely exerts himself 
to appropriate the productions of nature. Civilization makes 
a chauge. On page 60 he tells us that this change is wrought 
" by capital." As change has produced the " capital " it is 
difficult to see how capital could have produced the " change." 
Brute man had, of course, nothing when he started. What 
made him start ? On the same page in which the Professor 
says capital wrought the change he naively says : " It is won- 
derful that primitive man could have started." If the Pro- 
fessor's theory is correct it would have been altogether impos- 
sible. The desire to overestimate the power and productiveness 
of capital leads this school of philosophers into many strange 
doctrines. On page 61 he says : " From the first step man 
made above the brute, the thing that made his civilization pos- 
sible was capital." On page 63, however, he iuadvertently 
wanders into another theory and says : " It is in the middle 
range, with enough social pressure to make energy needful 
and not enough social pressure to produce despair, that the 
most progress has been made." Besides capital, it would 
seem that the Professor has stumbled on such a thing as 
" energy." Is it not possible that in tracing the causes that 
may have led a barbarous man to be something better, richer 
and more learned than he was, we may discover the main- 
springs of human aspiration, energy and desire? Energy, 



PROF. SUMNER. 13 

even according to the Professor, is not stimulated by " capital/' 
but by the want of it. What produces and has always pro- 
duced capital is labor. Political economists need not waste 
their time trying to demonstrate that a bag of dollars placed 
in a barrel can be hatched into two bags. What they should 
consider is how best to stimulate labor to the greatest produc- 
tiveness consistent with the health and moral culture of the 
laborer. Buckle, on the second page of his first volume of 
the " History of Civilization/' says : " The unequal distri- 
bution of wealth is the fertile source of social disturbances." 
Can we escape the dominion of moral law? Is it possible 
to found a healthy, prosperous and continuous society on con- 
tracts? It is the end of modern enlightened law that all 
customs, mercantile systems and schemes of finance must be 
founded on fair dealing. Formerly gambling debts could be 
collected. Hard _ and dishonest bargains when they passed 
into written obligations claimed sanctity and observance. Ac- 
cording to our modern system a man goes into court and pleads 
want of consideration. It is not enough that a matter be- 
tween men is a bargain: it must be a just bargain. From 
this it is a short step in jurisprudence to sit in judgment on 
all distributions and exchanges. Do you say this is inter- 
meddling ? If so, it is only intermeddling with wrong. Is 
no one interested in a transaction or bargain except the two 
who enter into it ? Yes, the state as much as the individual, 
is vitally interested in seeing that bargains are founded on 
the doctrine of perfect equivalents. Modern law even goes 
beyond this. It asserts, and the assertion is maintained, that 
the inventor of a valuable machine is not entitled to the ex- 
clusive benefits flowing from it. The public have certain rights 
therein. If the inventor had an absolute right, he and his 
descendants ought to be secured in a patent for all time, So- 
ciety does not permit this. It says that the inventor of a 
useful machine, or the author of a book, shall have a share in 
its profits for a limited number of years, when the product of 
2 



14 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

his genius and labor shall become public property. It will 
not do to say that this is a peculiar case, and that the author 
or inventor accepts a limited interest in his property, in con- 
sideration for the protection he gets during the limited period. 
The protection he gets is the protection of law, which, if 
necessary, he has to vindicate in the courts. So, also, has 
society and nations the task of protecting all property. Civil- 
ized society has to bear the expensive system of legislatures, 
executive officers, courts, sheriffs, policemen ; nor can it be 
shown that communities and nations have not as deep an in- 
terest in accumulated property as the individual claimant 
or owner thereof. 

When capital has grown to be in excess of the moderate 
competence which industry and thrift can fairly produce, it is 
a just subject for the heaviest burdens of the state ; and this 
not only because it is most able to bear them, but because 
there is good reason to believe that great fortunes have been 
accumulated by a system of distribution of the proceeds of 
labor unfair to the laborers. There is nothing communistic or 
agrarian in such propositions. While the case of the help- 
lessly poor is one of the legitimate burdens of society, and 
one which should be borne kindly and humanely, largely 
from accumulated capital, and while no property should be 
recognized as such save what has been honestly earned, no 
good can ever be accomplished by a leveling process between 
the poor and the justly rich. Such a step would destroy that 
enterprise which is the very life of society. If, according to 
Professor Sumner " Energy " lies at the foundation of pros- 
perity, we must take care that its back be not broken. This 
is the rock on which many social reformers split. To pre- 
serve that independent, hopeful spirit which makes a man 
work, economise and struggle for the comfort of himself and 
family is one of the vital principles of true political ecouomy. 
After all, it only means that a man shall be protected in his 
honest earnings. It does not mean that the lazy shall fare 



EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE. 15 

as well as the industrious. A sound form of society will 
repudiate non-producing classes, whether they be lazy paupers 
or sturdy capitalists who draw the lion's share of the annual 
outputs of human labor by ingenious financial devices. You 
can find in society, we will say, twenty men ; one of them is 
a capitalist, and nineteen who are workers for wages under 
him. He is successful. He expends for himself and family, 
we will say, eleven thousand a year. He lives in an elegant 
house. He and his family " dress in purple and fine linen 
and fare sumptuously every day." He drives in a carriage 
and his children are educated in the best colleges. Under 
the law of supply and demand, he pays his wage workers, 
we will say, an average of six hundred dollars a year each. 
He, of course, manages the concern. He expends for him- 
self almost as much as he gives his nineteen workers for 
wages. If he is very rapacious, and wishes still further to 
accumulate, he screws them down until they can hardly keep 
soul and body together. It is true, they can seek out a new 
employer who is probably like the old one, or, by close 
economy, may haply save enough to become employers them- 
selves. Should this law of bargains govern society, it would 
destroy the weak, and repudiate every doctrine of religion 
and morals. The essential conditions of a thriving and per- 
manent community are that labor shall command and secure 
the highest rate, and capital be procured at the lowest rate 
of interest. The most eminent of the Rothschilds declared 
that a business that continuously paid three per cent, for its 
capital would inevitably fail. There is, therefore, a just 
and honest limit to the earnings of accumulated wealth, and 
it has been maintained that only such capital as exists in the 
shape of productive machinery or improvements is entitled 
to any share in what is produced. 

Of all the systems of human oppression, none have been 
more fertile of mischief and wrong than landed aristocracy : 
individual claims to portions of the earth's surface, to the 



16 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

exclusion of the rights of others. To " have and to hold " 
means that other men and women shall not have and hold. 
Land holding is the monopoly of what Aristotle styled " the 
bounty of nature." When a man buys a section of six hun- 
dred and forty acres, a mile square, of the earth's surface, 
and has it conveyed to him, his heirs and assigns forever, it 
is not a piece of property he can put in his pocket or tie 
behind his saddle. In law we call it a real property" in 
contradistinction to "personal property." Is it property at 
all ? It is really an agreement between this owner, or pre- 
tended owner, and some other power or person to defend him 
in his attempt to exclude all the rest of the human race from 
using it, except in his interest. It is really a mortgage, not 
on this particular piece of the earth, but upon all the men 
and women who may happen to be born upon the earth, with 
the necessity of raising and eating bread. This so-called 
property is simply law for the benefit of the few against the 
many. There is not any other thing recognized by society 
as property so absolutely dependent on public recognition 
and defense as titles to land. Some king or government 
claimed to have the right to grant land or certain uses of it. 
Whether that grant was a lease, a holding under the feudal 
system, a sale for a certain period, or on certain conditions, 
or pretended to be an absolute sale of it as a mere chattel, the 
essence of it was military or political power. 

This brings us to the next view of the subject. What is 
known as a government or a nation is not merely a thing of 
geographical limits ; it is a combination of men, a body politic. 
It is, however, almost inseparable from geographical limits. 
You can scarcely imagine a nation without a country. Our 
maps and our histories divide the earth's surface into certain 
distinctly marked tracts and divisions. For convenience, on 
our modern maps they are colored differently. Each portion 
is recognized as belonging to the nation named ; we will say 
France or Germany, or Mexico, or the United States. Why? 



NATIONAL TITLE. 17 

Every one recognizes the portion in question to belong to the 
nation it represents. How do they get or maintain this title ? 
Occupancy, violence and power are the sole bulwarks of these 
possessions. Nine-tenths of the wars among mankind have 
been about the boundaries of these subdivisions. Do the 
British own their islands because they speak English ? Did 
those who speak French naturally inherit the region of earth 
between the Rhine and the Bay of Biscay ? Is the Spanish 
language the patent to the peninsula ? No ! These divisions 
are not created by differences of language, but differences of 
language are created by these divisions. Separate men into 
distinct nations, with a different polity and segregated inter- 
ests, and they soon cease to understand each other's forms of 
speech. Language, that wonderful garment of thought, is 
subject to hidden laws of fashion, and is the most mutable of 
all things. 

This political or governmental assertion of title to land is a 
proper matter to inquire into. It rests on the sword. It 
must not be forgotten, however, that this is merely an asser- 
tion of one nation as against another. Each nation claims 
the right to maintain the integrity of its territory. Into the 
minds of its people this lesson is instilled as the highest sense 
of duty, and affectionately called patriotism. Countries have 
been over-run and conquered many times in history. In bar- 
barous periods a wandering horde crossed a frontier, and, if 
successful, butchered the inhabitants ruthlessly, and left their 
bodies to fertilize the soil that now belonged to the conquerors. 
Fortresses were built, armies mustered and disciplined, navies 
created ; all these to defend the country and consecrate a por- 
tion of the earth to the Hun or the Sclav, the Goth or the 
Latin race. Without for a moment assuming that all coun- 
tries thus shaped, or governments thus created, were justly or 
properly founded, or that their present existence is for the 
benefit of the race, it is, nevertheless, necessary, as they do 
exist, to consider them. The world as constituted is not Uto- 



18 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

pia. We do not know whether the world would be better 
and men happier if all dwellers on the earth were one 
people, but they are not. The supposed hostile interests and 
prejudices between nations have been the occasion of great 
wrong and misery upon the earth. An armed mob, called an 
army, wins a victory in the enemy's country, and through 
this accident claims the right to rob the helpless tillers of the 
soil. Theoretically, governments are the essence of law, 
but this government is mere brute force. I take it for granted 
that it is the business of civilization to devise remedies for this 
evil. All men are interested in the establishment of justice 
and equity, protection and order, against mere violence. In- 
ternational law is ill-defined and crude; but when the honest 
judgment of combinations of nations acquire power and can 
dictate to physical strength, something will be gained. We 
have, to some extent, established the rights of the man as 
against the state, and we can hope for a more intelligent 
mode of determining the rights of nations toward each other. 
The divine right of kings over the lives and property of 
their subjects is pretty well exploded among civilized nations. 
Let us hope that the divine right of violence and fraud can 
also be brought to an end. Let us remember that much of 
what we call rights to-day, grew out of force and usurpation. 
When men and societies who have and claim such privileges 
rest them solely on violence, we can understand them. They 
are likely to maintain them just so long as no one else has 
the power or the spirit to resist them. This age, however, 
presents new problems. We have inherited the fruits of vio- 
lence and fraud, and are endeavoring to reconcile them to the 
doctrines of enlightened law. 

Let us accept the situation that a government asserts its 
rights to a land or country. Against this stands the broad 
axiomatic truth that the earth is the equal heritage of all men. 
In the United States we have practically asserted the broad- 
est right. Not only our native population, but emigrants 



# 

JVvf 

ROBBING POSTERITY. 19 

from all countries have been invited to equal participation in 
the soil. "Whether this has been done wisely in all things 
will be considered hereafter. Narrowed down to the state or 
nation, this organized government neither has nor should have 
any power to dispose of the soil save upon terms, now and for- 
ever, for the benefit of all men alike. The government of the 
United States has been founded on the doctrine of the per- 
fect equality of the rights of all men. " Governments derive 
their just power from the consent of the governed." Laws 
for the benefit of the few against the many are in violation of 
its fundamental principles. If we start with the doctrine 
that everything must be subservient to the best interests of 
all, the maxim we have quoted must be maintained and all 
else treated as usurpation and resisted. The government of 
the United States is merely an aggregated body of men, 
bound together on the understanding that all shall be per- 
fectly equal before the law, with equal justice, equal privi- 
leges, equal power. AYe get the best inspiration of law from 
divine laws, and they are distilled to us through the highest 
and purest human conscience. Recognizing the necessity of 
power to give effect to human law, we accept that power as 
the attribute of the majority, and therefore recognize that 
nothing is law, or can have the sanctity thereof, save the will 
of the people legitimately expressed. 

The function of the majority is to determine what is best 
for all. Where it has not done this it has violated the com- 
pact on which all came together, and the mistakes must be 
corrected. The right or power of the state over land should 
be to see that it is used for the equal benefit of all. To give 
a monopoly of land to a few is to give the bread and meat of 
the people to a few. The state never had any right to do 
that. In making the attempt it exceeded its powers. The 
unjust systems that have grown up under it call for reform. 
By the state we mean a government, and by a government 
we must understand a government of to-day. The govern- 



20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

ment of to-day has no right to govern the people fifty or a 
hundred years hence. Admitting their right of determining 
for the generation or the year they represent, the kind of usu- 
fruct title, lease or sale of the earth's surface that may exist, 
they certainly have no right to dispose of it against all future 
generations. On what conceivable plea of power can they 
create mischievous and unequal systems that shall harass 
generations after the bodies of these short-sighted rulers are 
dust ? Because they represent the people to-day, how shall 
they pretend to despotize over the people of all time, and in 
their own interest lay a mortgage on the bones and sinews of 
millions yet unborn ? 

When the " right of discovery " and the "^ight of con- 
quest," as doctrines, begin to be subject to a very heavy 
strain, the advocate for this property created by fraud or 
force pleads the statute of limitations. When reminded that 
lapse of time cannot sanctify a wrong, he further pleads the 
law of " use and wont." Again he urges that the public in- 
terest demands that there shall be a limit to all human con- 
troversies. If the doctrine i( whatever is, is right," cannot 
be fully recognized, he insists that at all events sudden 
changes in the existing status of society are daugerous ; that 
interference with long-settled property interests is unsafe and 
agrarian ; and that all property holders, from the owner of 
an acre to a principality, should make common cause against 
those who would inquire into their title to what they are now 
holding. 

Let it not be urged that the condition of laboring people 
gives no occasion for intelligent inquiry and reform. We 
present to the world a nation increasing in riches faster than 
any other nation, and, at the same time, the laborers whose toil 
produces this wealth, if not growing poorer, are relatively 
sinking as a class. We have multiplied innumerable labor- 
saving machines, and yet the world ngmen and women of the 
country labor as hard as their ancestors did. Our unexam- 



SELLING AND PRODUCING VALUE. 21 

pled prosperity is followed by a steadily increasing poorer 
class, while vagrancy and crime also increase. Our country 
presents a comparatively boundless empire, of almost virgin 
soil, and yet we see the singular anomaly of a rapidly increas- 
ing class of tenants and renters. Instead of a thriving yeo- 
manry, there is a tendency to farming by the wholesale, on 
speculation or by joint stock companies. Before we have 
fairly passed the squatting era, and while there are still unoc- 
cupied homesteads to be taken, the evils of the system of land 
tenure we have permitted confront us. We are certainly lay- 
ing the foundation of a landed aristocracy. We have allowed 
our timbered regions to be devastated and destroyed, until the 
condition thus produced affects the productiveness of some 
of our agricultural regions, and the comfort of many of our 
people. We present a startling picture of speculation in lands 
and lots by those who add nothing to their improvement, 
and fortunes are made without labor by the increase of popu- 
lation and the efforts of those who do not benefit by it. Spec- 
ulation, and the fact that land has been made a chattel, en- 
hances the valuation of lands and lots so as to put them 
beyond the reach of those who are poor or even those in 
moderate circumstances. An acre of land produces no more 
wheat or corn when it is valued at one hundred dollars than 
it did when it was valued at ten, and yet this has a tendency 
to increase the tax called rent to the producer. A house and 
lot valued at five hundred dollars offers as great comfort or 
conveniences as when the same house is valued at five thou- 
sand, and yet it costs the man who occupies it much more. 
This price, caused by speculation, is not conducive to the 
public interest. It is true it enables a few to acquire great 
fortunes without giving the public an equivalent. The con- 
dition of affairs arising from these speculative values, so far 
as they are created by an increase of population, raise prices 
without corresponding public benefit, the public do not share 
what they thus create, and, on the contrary, it actually in- 



22 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

creases their burdens. Not the least evil of this system is 
that it disturbs that fair distribution of the wealth produced 
by industry, and founds aristocratic classes, raised above the 
necessity of labor. 

Men do not properly estimate the evil of an increasing non- 
producing class. In England, a certain school of political 
economists said the non-producing classes were a blessing, be- 
cause they furnished a market for the surplus production 
arising from the labor of the poor. The larger the non-pro- 
ducing class in any country, in proportion to the laborers, the 
harder must the laborers work, and the more poorly must 
they be paid. If wealth maintained the power of keeping up 
its profits until fifty per cent, of the population lived upon it, 
the other fifty per cent, would have to work to keep them. 
If, then, the end of civilization is to increase wealth to such 
an extent that we are to have a large aristocratic class, w r e 
must, of necessity, have a large class of poor laborers. If 
the laborers should get a much larger proportion of what 
their labor produces than they now do, they would have better 
houses, be better clothed and fed, be better educated, have 
more books and more time to read them ; but then we would 
not have so many palaces, or so many magnificent, luxurious 
households. Is the elegant architecture of our civilization 
the best evidence of its greatness and power ? If this is all 
that it can produce, is it worth the price ? Above all, how 
long can it last ? We may shut our eyes and exclaim, 
" After me, the deluge." It remains to be seen whether a 
written constitution will prove a sufficient shield for the 
rights of the people. An aristocracy is even more abhor- 
rent than a king, and aristocracies are usually created by 
great wealth, and fostered by unequal privileges. The foun- 
dations of American aristocracy are already laid, and this 
has partly arisen from carelessness about the true foundation 
of a free republic. It seems, unhappily, to be the ambition 
of too many men to place their families at once above want 



MANUFACTURING STOCKS. 23 

and work. The public interests are lost sight of in the 
scramble. While age may justly have accumulated moderate 
wealth, and live in comfort or even luxury, there is no reason 
why youth should be exempted from toil by the curse of 
a competence. Hereditary wealthy families are not in har- 
mony with American ideas. A just public policy should 
tend to scatter and redistribute wealth. The only thing that 
renders this inequality of condition endurable, is the hope en- 
tertained by most poor men that they and theirs will happily 
rise above the calamities that aifect so many others in the 
community. When all unoccupied land is taken, and a dense 
population confronts us, the lines of society will grow more 
inflexible, and the disparity of condition will be greater and 
more clearly defined. Such changed conditions are rapidly ap- 
proaching, and will produce one of three things : The destruc- 
tion of the representative power and freedom of the people ; 
peaceful remedies wisely taken in time which will secure per- 
fect equality of rights, or the overthrow of the aristocracy by 
violence and anarchy. 

Our progressive and scheming civilization has developed 
new forms of speculation and new organizations to give power 
to capital. Corporations have already become more formida- 
ble than the government. Law has clothed them with arti- 
ficial power without placing proper restriction on its selfish 
and unjust exercise. There is not adequate security against 
the frauds they perpetrate. Aggregated capital is managed 
by boards of directors or trustees whose first business is to 
advance their own individual interests, and then, so far as 
consistent with it, the interests of the stockholders. Every 
dollar of actual cash contributed by stockholders to build rail- 
roads, telegraphs or other public enterprises, under great cor- 
porations, is apt to be represented on its books, certificates 
of stock and in the public markets by what are called its 
stocks, to twice, thrice or even ten times its true value. Cap- 
ital thus manages and demands that it shall be multiplied, 



24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

and that this fictitious wealth shall make equal charge out of 
the profits of an enterprise created by labor and a small 
amount of capital. Contracts are given for construction, by 
directors to their partners and confederates for more than the 
construction costs, and thus the public and the innocent stock- 
holders are cheated. Mortgages are sometimes placed on 
these properties and much of the money thus raised expended 
extravagantly in bonuses, salaries and pretended dividends as 
profits. While there may be a few well-conducted corpora- 
tions and companies, the corporate system as it exists, in the 
main, is a hive of gigantic swindling, into which absolute fair 
dealing and equity among men does not enter. It is indeed 
amazing that the intelligence of this nineteenth century should 
have permitted such a system of unequal distribution and 
fraud to have been created ; and, seeing the system operate, 
that law, which ought to be the safeguard of perfect equity, 
should for any length of time permit it to continue. 

Then we have gambling in corn. Meat and bread put up 
to be the football of stock-jobbers. Of all gambling this is 
the most iniquitous. It is bad enough that shrewd operators 
are thus allowed to fleece inexperienced dupes, but that these 
two between them should be permitted to put up and down 
the price of the bread and meat of sixty millions of people 
is perfectly monstrous. It is useless to say that they merely 
speculate in the natural rise of these articles. This unnatural 
speculation cannot get into successful operation until the bulk 
of what is produced in the current year goes into the hands 
of middle men. Then combinations are formed to force up 
and down prices. This system is fed by trickery and mis- 
representation as gross as the trickery by which a jockey ever 
palmed off a blind horse on an innocent customer. Foreign 
markets and the condition of the coming crops have a little 
to do with prices, but for all the artificial changes in the price 
of the food of the people, the gamblers in what are called 
" options," u puts " and " calls " are responsible. Of course, 



GAMBLING IN BREAD. 25 

there is a legitimate business in buying, storing and disposing 
of surplus bread and meat, but there is scarcely a business 
requiring in greater degree the safeguards of law, and from 
which all gambling and artificial speculation should be so 
thoroughly banished. If what is sometimes termed "free 
competition " means that the more cunning and adroit shall 
profit by unfair bargains with the illiterate or unsophisticated, 
enlightened law must make an end of all such phases of 
" free competition." 

There have been two favorite modes of robbing laborers. 
First, by the slavery which seized his person, and by threats 
and violence which compelled him to work for the tyrant 
who claimed to be his master. Second, by seizing the surface 
of the earth from which human sustenance must be drawn, and, 
on the plea of exclusive ownership, compelling the cultivator 
to give half of what he produced from the earth to another. 
Political economists have preached about the " Doctrine of 
rent," and, accepting the claim of ownership as an inevitable 
fact, have proceeded to demonstrate that rent was the differ- 
ence between good land and poor land, when every one knows 
that rent could not exist but for monopoly. The doctrine that 
the surface of the earth can be made a chattel independent of 
its use is a modern conception, and of evil tendency, and our 
American land tenures are the result of a chapter of accidents. 
We inherited all the bad parts of the English system, and 
launched on a career of speculation in which we were reckless 
of human rights. 

The writer is not insensible to the embarrassments that a 
highly refined and artificial condition of society throw around 
these questions. He is aware that many of the most splendid 
of ancient empires have been founded on robbery, piracy, 
slavery and murder. The palaces of kings cannot always 
hide the hovels of the laboring poor. Great modern cities 
seem to afford a better field to able, unscrupulous and adroit 
managers, than to quiet, honest mediocrity, or even to quiet, 
3 



28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

honest ability. There bargains rule. At the very threshold 
of reform, we are met with the assertion of " vested rights " 
which are probably only vested wrongs. I am loath to believe 
that if you strip enterprise and energy of every element of 
dishonesty, men will lapse into barbarism. It may be styled 
agrariauism, when a reformer of abuses endeavors to set bolts 
and bars against the unjust exactions by which the accumu- 
lated capital of yesterday seeks to place its foot on the necks 
of- the laborers of to-day. 

There will be j list inequalities in the condition of men so long 
as there are differences among them as to industry and thrift. 
The accumulation of enormous fortunes is always a calamity, 
and often a crime. It is doubtful if the unfair transactions 
that lie at the base of colossal wealth are as great misfortunes 
as the wielding of such a giant power by an unscrupulous 
person. Some men might be compared to magnets, having 
the power to draw to them gold from every avenue of society. 
We are too much in the habit of admiring this accomplish- 
ment. It is high time that we had a code of morals that 
would cease to hold it up to emulation. In founding the 
government of the United States, great strides were made in 
the progress of civil liberty. The principles then enunciated 
must not be permitted to become mere " glittering generalities." 
It took nearly a century to abolish slavery in a free country, 
and aristocracy and inequalities founded on injustice have not 
yet found their remedies. 

I shall discuss the remedies in the proper place. There is 
much to admire in the ideas of Mr. Henry George, but making 
the government the landlord is a proposition it will be well to 
carefully consider. Those who own the land rule the country. 
Government is not an abstract theory but an organization of 
men who may closely follow or conspire against its principles. 
Frequent elections and oft-renewed responsibility are checks, 
yet there may be danger in giving even to those who happen 
to administer our free government the power to decide the 



HENRY GEORGE. 27 

length and character of land tenures, or, what is of more sig- 
nificance, to provide an enormous revenue, which would flow 
in as rent to fill the treasury, no matter what the wish of the 
people may be in each year as to taxation or expenditure. Of 
course, it will be said that this rent is only another form 
of tax, but it is not an annually assessed tax ; on the contrary, 
it would be a steadily growing revenue, which the national 
landlord might soon assume to be his own property. It is 
possible that in this way the government would become 
stronger than the people. The rulers, moreover, who would 
demand the rent would, at the same time, have the power to 
distribute, divide and fix tenure to the national inheritance. 

Instead of the assumption that the land belongs to the nation 
or government, let it be asserted that the land belongs to the 
people. Fundamental and specific law should secure and conse- 
crate it for the use or benefit of all the people, to be redistributed 
as the changes in society occur, and instead of the details of 
tenure being managed by the general government, they should 
be under local supervision as near as possible to the people. 
The old town organizations offer the primitive model. 

Mr. Francis Walker, in his "Land and its Rent," follows 
the theory that rent is created by the difference between rich 
and poor land. The necessity of ownership by somebody is 
assumed. His general conclusions, in the work referred to, 
are that it is the interest of all classes to have an agricultural 
system that will yield the largest production of wealth. This 
does not reach or touch the question as to whom it properly 
belongs. 

The system of agriculture that w r ould produce the largest 
amount at the smallest possible cost would be a wholesale farm- 
ing that would abolish small farmers. Instead of the independ- 
ent yeoman, cultivating his land and living in his house as 
the head of his establishment, we would have the agricultural 
community in three classes : the landlord, the farmer, or over- 
seer, and laborers. In the same way and on the same prin- 



28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

ciple, an enormous dry goods house swallows up in its growth 
and progress a thousand of the small establishments of inde- 
pendent traders. By this wholesale process the men become 
dependent salesmen and clerks, workers for wages. In this 
way goods may be sold cheaper and the power of capital is 
augmented, but the independence and comfort of the individual 
is reduced. We propose, therefore, to inquire whether the 
happiness and comfort of the great mass of the people is not 
the first consideration, and all others subordinate to it. Mr. 
E. H. G. Clark, in a recent essay, "Man's Birthright," thinks 
that he has found the philosopher's stone, that is to correct 
the errors of Mr. George, in a two per cent, annual tax, which 
he believes will confiscate the entire property in fifty years 
and be a " patent made easy" year of jubilee. He does not 
inform us who is to pay the tax, or show us that it will not be 
the man who rents and cultivates the land, or the man who 
buys the corn, rather than the man who is the landlord and 
claims to have title to the soil. If Mr. Clark would take the 
ground that the rent should be paid in lieu of taxes, to support 
public burdens, he would approximate to Mr. George's plat- 
form. A two per cent, tax on fixed values is what we have 
in many states now. 

In approaching a subject of such magnitude with the 
becoming diffidence imposed by its perplexities, I shall, as 
succinctly as possible, glean from history the salient points 
that throw light on the establishment of existing land systems. 
Men have often a slavish disposition to respect precedents 
without stopping to scrutinize the circumstances on which they 
were founded, or to remember that for much of what is good 
in modern society we are indebted to innovation. Systems 
and principles must . be considered in so far as they affect 
governments and men. In an age when it is announced that 
bargains or contracts should alone govern society, and that 
men owe each other nothing but politeness, let us not alto- 
gether forget, that the brotherhood of the race and equity and 



DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 29 

religion are a fundamental basis for society. Cool, calculating, 
selfishness may be deemed the best balance wheel of society, 
but experience shows us that it brings communities into a 
condition when organized benevolence or revolution are indis- 
pensable. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SYSTEM OF ANCIENT ISEAEL. 

"The land shaxl not be sold forever, for the land is mine; for ye are strangers 
and sojourners with me." — lev. xxv. 23. 

Scope of the Hebrew laws — The patriarchate the primitive government of 
the Semitic races — Laws framed to regulate land tenure before land was 
possessed — Available area of Judea — Distinction between property in 
the country and in walled cities — Land nationalization rejected — Fam- 
ily tenure of land — The year of jubilee — Usurpations of the monarchy — 
Tithes and taxes — The peculiar and advantageous features of Jewish 
polity. 

If we are to discard the study of abstract propositions and 
recondite theories, as foundation for social economics and law, 
and gather data from the records of human experience and 
history, no finer study presents itself than the wonderful polity 
of the ancient Jewish nation. Accepting their own record, 
and studying the early portions from the five books of Moses, 
we have facts differing from those of all other human history. 
Other nations, like them, have begun by being nomads and wan- 
derers. Other nations, like them, have had a government of pop- % 
ular acceptance followed by a monarchy, with all its despotisms, 
splendor and mishaps. Perhaps no other nation ever before had 
a government without a country, and a complete code of law 
before they had courts or recognized earthly executive au- 
thority. Human history affords us no similar accepted code. 
It was a strange compound of simplicity and minute inter- 
meddling. Their religious duties and ceremonials were set 
forth with a wonderful perspicuity. The food they should eat 
was prescribed. Habits of cleanliness were systematized into 
law. Their laws of marriage were rigid. The laws of hos- 
30 



ISKAEL IN EGYPT. 31 

pitality, even, were defined, and law dictated the duties of 
charity. Of course, there is much in the books of the law 
adapted to only such a people and such a time, but the great 
essentials are the highest conception of purity and equity. 
In regard to those regulations which refer to food, the culti- 
vation of the soil, cleanliness and other things which are now 
considered as of little importance, or not properly within the 
scope of governmental powers, the result proves that in ne- 
glecting them we have not gained, and that the books of 
Leviticus and Deuteronomy might still be read to great ad- 
vantage. 

The ten commandments we have carefully preserved, but 
while the books of the Mosaic law remain in the Old Testament, 
they are practically considered as abrogated. Neither does 
there appear to be a full realization of all that the ten com- 
mandments involve. The fourth commandment, for instance, 
enjoins the observance of the Sabbath. While the portion of 
the commandment enjoining rest is often caviled at, many 
seem to overlook altogether the binding force of the other 
portion of the command: a Six days shalt thou labor." 
Among the ancient Jews the law of labor was as imperative 
as the day of rest. The Jewish economy furnished neither 
opportunity for nor toleration of a non-producing class. All 
men were compelled to work. 

The patriarchal system did not originate with the Jews ; 
they inherited it. This primitive form of aristocracy was, 
and still is, common to Arabia, and, indeed, to all that region, 
the Sheik (elder) being the head. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 
were each the chief and ruler of a great household. The 
elder or head assumed a regal authority, exercising even the 
power of life and death. Seventy souls of the family of Jacob 
entered Egypt. They maintained a distinct identity, but 
were invited guests and friends, one of their number being a 
chief ruler under Pharaoh. They were assigned a locality in 
the land of Goshen. For four hundred and thirty years this 



32 HEBREW TENURE. 

germ of the Jewish nation grew, and when they went forth 
from Egypt they had an army of six hundred thousand men. 
It is estimated that this gave a population of two millions 
and a half. Of the form of local government they main- 
tained in Egypt, we have very meagre accounts, yet each tribe 
kept its genealogies and distinct political existence, the num- 
ber of fighting men of each tribe being stated. The law had 
not been given, or the five books of Moses written, but they were 
a people bound together by blood, religious customs, and 
eemented into a nationality by their hopes and traditions. 
Had the Jews followed the usual course of emigrants to for- 
eign countries, and merged in the population of Egypt, be- 
coming part of it by absorption, they would not have been 
the victims of hatred and jealousy. They were a distinct 
people, not mingling with their neighbors. They rejected the 
religious belief of the Egyptian. They acquired no foothold 
as owners of the land ; in fact, all of the valuable land in 
Egypt was then held by the priests, the sovereign and the 
army. The common people of Egypt were renters under one 
of these three. Egypt had at that time one of the best devel- 
oped forms of ancient civilization. It has been said that it 
was in Egypt that these shepherd patriarchs acquired a knowl- 
edge of written language, of the arts and sciences, of public 
works and manufactures. They acquired a knowledge of 
slavery through the hardest of all lessons, a bitter experience. 
We are simply told that another king arose who knew not 
Joseph. Old services and the hospitality evoked by them 
were forgotten. In point of fact, a new dynasty had arisen, 
and Hebrew and Egyptian alike were under the power of the 
conquerors. The religion of Egypt had not changed. Its 
land system, always bad, had not improved. So far as the 
Egyptian people were concerned it was merely a change from 
one tyrant to another. With the Israelites it was worse. 
Always isolated, and subject to the jealousies of the people, 
they were now stripped of the friendship or favoritism of the 



NO LAND SPECULATION. 33 

rulers. They had, indeed, a chequered experience of the 
power and barbaric splendor of Egypt. They had seen a 
king of Egypt use the surplus revenue, or wealth of his king- 
dom, to buy all the corn in the years of plenty, and had also 
seen him with that corn buy the title to a large portion of the 
land of Egypt. As they refused to become a homogeneous 
portion of the Egyptian people, it was morally certain that 
they must strive for ascendency or sink to the bottom, and, as 
they continued to multiply, equally certain that a disruption 
had to come sooner or later. Fugitives from slavery, with- 
out a polity or a country, the Jewish nation crystallized in 
the wilderness. Forty years wandering inured them to pri- 
vation and gave them nerve. The generation that had trem- 
bled at the commands of its Egyptian taskmasters passed 
away. They had not forgotten that Abraham, while a wan- 
derer upon the face of the earth, had purchased in Canaan, of 
Ephron, the Hittite, for four hundred shekels of silver, the field 
and cave of Macpelah, and that the Lord had promised to 
give them a country flowing with milk and honey. 

It is certainly an interesting study to contemplate the code 
of law and ethics in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and 
Deuteronomy. Here we have the most thorough system of 
legislation for land before they possessed land, and the order 
of crops and the seventh or fallow year, in which the land was 
to rest and recuperate, prescribed before they had sown a seed. 
Then followed after the seven times seven, the year of jubilee, 
when all the land that had been alienated, mortgaged or sold, 
should go back to the original family to whom it belonged. 
The land should not be sold forever, only and excepting a 
house with its lot within a walled city. That was a chattel.* 
Within one year from the date of its sale it could be redeemed. 
The houses in villages and cities not walled were " counted as 
the fields of the country/' and went back to the original family 
in the day of jubilee. Even the temporary sales were rigidly 
* Lev. xxv. 30. 



34 HEBKEW TENURE. 

regulated. There was little room for speculative prices. 
According to the fruits they would produce for the years of 
cultivation between the period of sale and the year of jubilee, 
the price was to be computed. At any time the person so 
selling was permitted, if able, to redeem, or redeem through a 
friend, by paying for the years that were to intervene before 
the year of jubilee. At that time, without pay, the transaction 
was at end. The law which authorized six years for crops 
and one year for fallow and rest, prevented the land from 
being scourged and rendered barren by temporary occupants. 
In the year of jubilee, captives taken in Avar and all servants 
and debtors were set free. Even the servants, who at the 
expiration of their six years of service voluntarily relinquished 
liberty, and had their ears bored through with an awl, went 
out in the year of jubilee.* The land law of the Jews, we are 
told, was somewhat famous among ancient nations, and several 
of them attempted to copy it.f The permission to sell for 
limited periods was not considered an alienation of land such 
as we permit. Diodorus Siculus informs us that it was not 
lawful for the Jews to sell their own inheritance. This law 
of the Hebrews prevented the rich from absorbing the lands, 
and for this reason the Jews were never cursed with a landed 
aristocracy. The rulers neither owned nor controlled the land, 
and were, therefore, unable to draw great revenues from it to 
support armies, by which the rights of the people could be 
overthrown. When military service was required, the family 
supplied the soldiers with needed food from home. They had 
the spoil of the enemy, but a hireling soldiery was unknown, 
at least in her earlier history. Slavery existed, as it existed 
in every nation at that time, but in Israel the slaves were 
protected by law ; were treated as part of the household, and 
the year of jubilee fixed the limit of bondage. The Israelites 
had learned more than the arts and sciences during their 
experience in Egypt. 

* Jennings' Antiquities of the Jews, page 468. f Ibid. 



FAMILY LANDHOLDING. «50 

A careful study of the ancient Jewish polity will show that 
the lands were kept as the equal possession of all the people 
of each generation. It was impossible it could aggregate in 
large tracts in a few hands. The term of alienation may be 
said to have been limited to a period that on an average would 
cover the generation that so disposed of it, and was merely a 
limited privilege to secure payment of debts. An increase of 
population would diminish the amount of the estate that 
would revert to each of the descendants, and vice versa. 
Their whole system was carefully founded on the idea that as 
population increased the redistributions and reduction of 
amounts held for use should keep pace with it. 

It has been estimated, at a moderate computation, that the 
land to be divided among the Israelites in the time of Joshua, 
on both sides of the Jordan, that is, of available land, was at 
least twenty-five millions of acres. One estimate of the num- 
ber of acres to each head of a family is about forty-two.* 
The lowest estimate of the number of acres to each family was 
twenty-two. In addition to this there was the pasture lands 
in the mountains and the oasis of the desert. It has also been 
computed that, as population increased, if it should be necessary 
to reduce this to six acres to each family, it could support an 
agricultural population of four millions of families, or twenty 
millions of people, besides those in the cities who might be 
engaged in other pursuits.! 

It will thus be seen that the outlines of the Jewish land 
policy were : First, a division for each tribe. Second, a 
division for each family in each tribe. Third, while temporary 
alienations were permitted on a clearly defined basis, once in 
each fifty years it went back, with all its belongings, to the 
descendants of the family originally owning it, and, of course, 
had to be subdivided according to the number of interested 

* Wine's Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews, page 388. 
t Ibid., page 391. 



36 HEBREW TENURE. 

« 

families. Fourth, the land was not permitted to be exhausted, 
but must have a fallow or rest once in seven years, no matter 
who occupied it. Fifth, that while all improvements and 
farms in the field, and in villages, were thus held for the use 
of each succeeding generation and could not be alienated from 
them, the piece of ground on which a house stood in a walled 
city was held to be a chattel, which, if sold, could not, after 
the lapse of one year, be redeemed. This was, no doubt, on 
the theory that the lots in a walled city could produce nothing ; 
that they were only the foundation for the buildings that 
covered them, and probably because the population of these 
cities constantly fluctuated. These were the peculiar features 
of the Jewish land laws. In the laws of inheritance, all the 
succeeding generations were considered. "To many thou 
?halt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give 
the less inheritance. To every one shalt his inheritance be 
given according to those that were numbered of hiin." * Sons 
and daughters had their share, but if a woman married out 
of her tribe she lost her share of the tribal inheritance of 
land.f 

In many respects, this Jewish polity differed from that of 
ancient nations. With most of these the land was claimed by 
the sovereign. The cultivators were tenants and paid rent or 
tribute to the government, and with them this was one of the 
main sources from which revenue was derived. The Jewish 
monarchs were not recognized as having any title or claim to 
the land. One of the serious offences committed by the kings 
being the attempt to appropriate the land of other men, as 
witness the case of Ahab, who took the vineyard of Naboth 
the Jezreelite. In fact, the Jewish plan of government was 
essentially democratic or popular.! The will of the peo- 
ple was the highest law, consistent with the fact that it 

* Num. xxvi. 54. f Num. xxxvi. 7, 9. 

\ Von Ranke's Universal History, page 49. 



THE MONARCHY. 37 

recognized the will of the Deity as the source of all law. 
Even the question of worship was submitted to them. " If God 
be God, serve him, and if Baal, serve him." It was indeed a 
theocracy, but a theocracy that recognized no man as the vice- 
gerent of God. Popular assemblies settled the most important 
questions, and the doctrine of equal, popular rights lay at the 
foundation of their religion and morals. 

The early days of the Jewish nation, before the monarchy, 
were the days of its simplicity and power. It then existed 
according to the spirit and tenor of its laws. A throne was 
offered to Gideon, but he patriotically rejected it, and said : 
" Jehovah shall rule over you." Their religion was the wor- 
ship of the unseen God, and a repudiation of all idols. Of 
the whole nation it was said : " And ye shall be unto me a 
kingdom of priests."* The law as given originally by 
Moses will be found much simpler and purer than a good 
deal that was engrafted on it. The penalty of stealing a man 
and making a slave of him was death. A species of slavery 
to extinguish debt was allowed, but these slaves were not per- 
mitted to be oppressed, and, as has been said, slavery had its 
limit. False weights and measures were an abomination. A 
laborer was not to be defrauded, but what was due him was 
to be paid ere the sun went down. Usury was forbidden, 
and, although they subsequently exacted usury from the hea- 
then, it had originally little color of law.f A stranger so- 
journing with them was to be treated as one born among 
them. They were not permitted to oppress strangers. In 
their buying and selling they were enjoined "not to defraud 
one another." They were not to glean their fields and vine- 
yards bare ; a part was to be left for the poor, — and on all 
rested the obligations of hospitality in its broadest extent. 

On this government of the people a species of monarchy 
was engrafted. It was an accident, and worse than an acci- 



* Ex. xix. 6. f Ex. xxii. 25, 26. 

4 



38 HEBREW TENURE. 

dent. Samuel warned the people of their folly when they 
demanded a king, and they had abundant reason to repent of 
it. The reign of the first monarch, Saul, was disastrous, its 
decadence dating almost from its beginning. The Jewish gov- 
ernment was a theocracy ; grave questions were referred to the 
Lord, and answers obtained by the priests from the Urim and 
Thummim. Saul undertook to consult the Lord himself, and 
from that moment Samuel took issue with him. Had Samuel 
failed to do this, there would have been no check upon an 
ambitious ruler. Although the sceptre had departed from 
Saul's house, he remained on the throne until his death, when 
the Jewish kingdom was rent in twain. David at first only 
established his authority over Judah and Benjamin, and Ish- 
bosheth, Saul's son, had an uncertain kingly authority over 
the other ten tribes. Ishbosheth proved to be neither a 
statesman nor a politician, and soon quarrelled with his men 
of might. David was a good politician and adroit ruler. 
He cemented the tribe of Benjamin to Judah, and to the for- 
tunes of his house by removing the capitol to Jerusalem in 
the country of Benjamin. The capitol played no small part 
in the polity of the Jewish government. Every man was 
required to go up thither at least once a year. There many of 
the tithes were received. The whole system eventually built up 
much wealth and power about Jerusalem. This power, and the 
religion centreing there, were the anchors of the Jewish state. 

As has been said the government of Israel, whether of 
judges or monarchs, did not claim the land. It belonged to 
the people, and to the people alike of each succeeding genera- 
tion. The government and the church were supported by 
tithes. One-tenth of all the increase was assessed under the 
Levitical law, whether of fruits, grain or herds. Tithes have 
been denounced as the most iniquitous of all taxes. It is not 
the purpose of this chapter to argue that question, but to state 
the facts. 

This one-tenth of the annual production supported the 






TITHES AND POLL TAX. 39 

church with its priests and ceremonies, and a system of 
education the most general, and, for that reason, the best of 
the ancient world. Other nations, like the Greeks, had 
schools of a very high order where a few great men were 
taught. Tithes also maintained the complete judicial system, 
and preserved the public records which were carefully and 
jealously kept. Indeed, the whole government machinery 
was maintained by tithes. It is proper to add that there was 
a poll tax. It was levied the first time when the Jews were 
numbered in the wilderness, and was "appointed for the ser- 
vice of the tabernacle of the congregation." * It was at first, 
and in all the earlier and better portions of Jewish history, 
an exigency tax.f Originally, it amounted to half a shekel, 
but in the later period of the Jewish history, when it be- 
came annual, and in the Roman days it was about one-fourth 
of a shekel, equal to about twenty-five or thirty cents. Jo- 
seph us informs us that Vespasian directed the same tax to be 
paid, but into the Roman instead of the Jewish treasury. 
How often the kings levied taxes, and what they consisted of, 
is not very well known, but the record shows that the people 
groaned under their exactions. 

Let us compare the tithes with our own taxes. With 
us, land is taxed to the owner. It is safe to say that land 
does not produce much more, over and above the seed and the 
necessary expense, than from ten to twenty per cent, of its 
fixed value. If ten per cent, of this latter was taken for tax 
it would be from one to two dollars per acre. If we average 
our taxes for all purposes, they are not much less, and it 
must be borne in mind that Ave place a tax on the land at a 
fixed valuation, whether there is a crop or not. 

We must remember that the tithes were not necessarily the 
property of the Jewish sovereign, but were really or nomi- 
nally controlled by the church. The Jewish monarchy was 

* Ex. xxx. 12. 

f Lowman's Civil Government of the Hebrews, page 96. 



40 HEBREW TENURE. 

weak. Property in the soil is the natural foundation for power, 
because everybody is dependent on it. The Jewish king had 
nothing to do with that. So far as he was able, he became 
a part of the theocracy. He had in that way some control 
over the tithes. David, as has been said, was an astute poli- 
tician. His reign was chiefly distinguished by efforts to 
build up the monarchy. By caution and forbearance he was 
finally enabled to stretch his authority over all the twelve 
tribes. These tribes were, however, independent states. The 
kingly authority was exercised very gently upon them. On 
all important questions they held their own councils. David 
did not attempt to concentrate the great wealth and power at 
Jerusalem, which his son, after him, succeeded in doing. By 
conquests over his neighbors he extended the boundaries of 
most of the tribes. He was thus able to add to their landed 
inheritance, and to enrich them with the spoils of their 
enemies. 

His son Solomon became the head of the theocracy as well 
as king. He commenced the great temple by voluntary con- 
tributions. In his reign the Jewish empire extended from 
the Mediterranean to the great river (Euphrates). With the 
exception of a few cities and limited territories of the Phoeni- 
cians, it touched Egypt at the south, and reached almost to 
the gates of Damascus. His father David had succeeded in 
taking Damascus, one of the most important of his con- 
quests, for it lay at the threshold of overland commerce be- 
tween the great empires of the East and West.* During the 
early part of Solomon's reign this was lost. He, however, 
erected fortified places on the great commercial roads in order 
to control them, and made alliances with Pharaoh, of Egypt, 
and the Phoenician kings of Tyre. In cementing his power, 
his father, King David, had organized an independent military 
force, instead of depending on the armies furnished by the 

* Von Ranke's Universal History, page 48. 



THE LEVITES LANDLESS. 41 

tribes. At the muster of all the tribes, in David's reign, the 
valiant men who drew the sword were one million three 
hundred thousand. The Gibborum was a separate force, and 
was the army of the king. With this he placed garrisons in 
the cities. Thus a military aristocracy began to grow up in 
his reign, which was continued and increased during that of 
Solomon, becoming very objectionable to the tribes. This, 
and the burdens laid upon the people to maintain such a sys- 
tem were fertile causes of the future evils that befell the 
kingdom. The reign of Solomon was not so much a period 
of conquest as had been that of his father. He cemented his 
power, but in building the temple and the palaces of ivory 
his reign became one of splendor and luxury, and these began 
to sap the life of the people. The seeds of dissolution were 
sown, and when the son of Solomon ascended the throne of 
his father, the ten states of the Jewish empire made de- 
mands before they would acknowledge him. "All Israel 
came to Shechem to make him king." It was really an elec- 
tion. As a preliminary, they demanded : " Make thou the 
grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he 
put on us, lighter, and we will serve thee." Not being a 
statesman, this he refused to do. Even in the days of Sol- 
omon, a prophet had marked out a man of another tribe 
and house as his successor. Jeroboam, of the tribe of 
Ephraim, had assisted King Solomon in securing compulsory 
service for his great buildings. While' so engaged, he be- 
trayed ambitious schemes, and fled into Egypt to escape 
the wrath of Solomon. In Egypt he married a princess, 
the sister of the then Pharaoh, and she aided him in his de- 
signs. When the ten tribes revolted, exclaiming, " AVhat 
portion have we in David, neither have we inheritance in 
the son of Jesse," then the Jewish empire was forever 
rent in twain, and the conspirator, Jeroboam, now appeared 
as the king of the ten tribes. Rehoboam at first intended, 
at the head of an army, to subdue them, but was admon- 



42 HEBREW TENURE. 

ished by a prophet to desist, which was evidently judicious 
advice. 

The two ambitious ruling tribes were Ephraim and Judah. 
Usually, all the kings were chosen from one or the other of 
these tribes. Joshua was of the tribe of Manasseh.* Gideon 
was of the tribe of Manasseh, as was Deborah. Ephraim and 
Manasseh were the two tribes who trace their origin to Joseph 
and his Egyptian wife.f The Jewish law was stringent in 
forbidding marriages with other nations for the avowed reason 
that it might lead to idolatry. It is difficult to say just how 
strictly this rule was observed. Moses had an Ethiopian 
wife. J Benjamin, the full brother of Joseph by Rachel, and 
the tribe which sprang from him, furnished the first King of 
Israel, Saul. Strangely enough, aud although David over- 
threw the house of Saul, by his arts as a statesman he con- 
verted the tribe of Benjamin, until Judah and Benjamin were 
fast allies. It is not surprising that jealousies grew up between 
the ambitious rulers of the great tribes of Judah and Ephraim. 
Before the monarchy each of these states was comparatively 
independent, consulting upon, and to a great extent determin- 
ing their own affairs. The Levites, to whom was assigned the 
administration of the law and religious ordinances, were not 
permitted to own land. Certain cities were set apart for their 
residences and the immediate suburbs for their cattle. They 
were thus stripped of the means of consolidating their power, 
and, practically, had little more than a sufficient income. The 
wisdom of David for a time checked the jealousies among the 
tribes, but his descendants, in their pride and aristocracy, for- 
got his maxims. The great tribe of Ephraim was the fitting 
rival of Judah when an opposition wanted a head. Jeroboam, 
jealous of the power of Jerusalem, borrowed the idolatry of the 
Philistines. When Ephraim revolted, the Jewish monarchy 

* Von Eankc's Universal History, page 34. f Ibid., page 37. 

% Num. xii. 1. 



PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH LAW. 43 

had not sufficient power to check it. Had there been a great 
army, well secured revenues, and a powerful king, the ten 
tribes and the rights of their people might have been trampled 
under foot. The army of the king could not cope with the 
army of the tribes. The constitution of the Jewish nation, its 
ideas, principles and law, had nothing in common with mon- 
archy or absolutism. Until its polity was utterly overthrown 
an enduring monarchy could not be placed upon it. It is, 
also, well to remember that a great population had grown up 
in Israel. It has been estimated that at that time, it was as 
dense as it is in England or Bengal at the present day. Then, 
and shortly after the disruption, the mountains of Judea were 
terraced, even to a greater extent than they now are in China. 
Jewish history should, properly, be divided into three 
periods. From Abraham to Moses there elapsed upwards of 
four hundred years of the patriarchal state, in which the germs 
of the nation grew. From Moses to the monarchy nearly four 
hundred years passed away. That was the golden era of the 
Jewish nation. Its judges and rulers were of popular accept- 
ance. During that four hundred years their peculiar political 
system was built. Its law was written. Her land system 
founded on an idea based not only on the rights of all but the 
rights of each generation. The errors in the system were the 
barnacles placed there by those who could never have founded 
such a polity. Then came the five hundred years of wretched 
monarchy. Schism, disunion, disruption, bad rulers, and 
attempts to degrade the people and change the principles of the 
government. Its degenerate fragments were swallowed up by 
conquest when its wealth and its corruption rendered it a rich 
prize and an easy prey. The attempt to rebuild and remodel 
was but a partial success. It struggled along weak internally 
and the victim of conquest after conquest ; on the advent of the 
Christian era, it was finally rent in fragments ; and the people 
who had been taught by law the evils of usury went forth 
wanderers and usurers on the face of the earth. 



44 HEBREW TENURE. 

Examining it carefully, it was a wonderful polity, that 
system of the ancient Jewish nation. It took cognizance of 
the fact, that a healthy body could only be enjoyed by eating 
healthy food. Surrounded by nations debased by horrid and 
obscene crimes, diseased bodies and all manner of uncleanliness, 
they were taught that cleanliness was next to godliness. Their 
law pointed out the dangers of usury. Their land belonged 
to the people, to all the people, and equally to the people of all 
time. Much in their legal system appears to us now to be 
barbarous. Tried by the standard of a highly refined age, it 
doubtless was harsh and perhaps cruel. The laws of a nation 
can never be safely placed far ahead of the people they are to 
govern. Idealists lay down theoretical principles. Statesmen 
adapt the machinery of government to the people and elevate 
the standard of law, only as fast as they can be lifted. Vision- 
aries chide delay, and visionaries in their place are useful. In 
studying the Jewish laws, we are, therefore, to study not the 
few acute or startling points, but the circumstances and con- 
dition of the people. We have to study, moreover, the nations 
by whom they were surrounded, and their besetting sins. 
We must look, also, to the tendencies of their government. 
Its underlying principles of purity, morality, equality and 
. justice. Modern men, with all their genius and literature, 
inheriting the wisdom and wealth of antiquity, may smile at 
some of the Jewish laws and pronounce them not adapted to 
the present times ; when they have done so, they should read 
and ponder over the wonderful history and law of the ancient 
Jewish people. If they can rise above their own prejudices, 
they will possess a better conception of human nature, govern- 
ment and law. The modern man may boast of the grandeur 
of his own civilization, he will also feel that in our progress 
we have forgotten many things, a knowledge of which is 
necessary for a well-organized and permanent state. 

The* Jewish nation has passed away, but its history and 
law have, to a partial extent, become a part of our civilization. 



WHAT IS LEFT OF JUDAISM. 45 

Though scattered, the Hebrews have still an identity. They 
have left their mark on nearly every later nation, for Chris- 
tianity sprang from Judaism, and still reveres the old Bible, 
and accepts much of its law. Ten tribes of ancient Israel 
have been lost. Like their fathers, they once more became 
wanderers, not to a promised land, but away from the faith 
and polity of Israel. Imaginative historians endeavor to 
trace them in Arabia, India, Siam, China, or even among 
the aborigines of America. These vain speculations merely 
show that the great fragments of Israel, wherever they are, 
have practically passed into oblivion. The ideas on which 
the Hebrew nation was built are older than the theories and 
doctrines on which the foundations of Greece and Rome lay, 
but they have survived both. 

Israel has not a country ; her people have ceased to make 
their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the smoke of her 
altars does not now ascend to heaven, but there is a wonderful 
vitality in what is left of her principles. The Year of Jubi- 
lee is but a tradition ; no longer does the trumpet's sound 
declare a home for homeless wanderers, or rescue the unfor- 
tunate from the grasping hand of avarice. Cleanliness, from 
being a statute, has passed into the dominion of taste. The 
law regulating food is confronted by the independent as- 
sertion of a man's right to poison his body, and sow in his 
system the seeds of disease if he chooses. If usury is a crime, 
the boundaries of that enormity have been lost in a fog 
thrown around them by political economists, and the laws 
against it do not seem to be remembered even in Lombard 
street or Amsterdam. In spite of all this decadence there is 
enough of the old ideas left to crystallize a Hebrew element 
at once distinct, and yet certainly potent, in every great 
modern nation. 



CHAPTER II. 

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIEES. 

Similarity of populations on the Nile and Euphrates — Landlords and rent 
in Egypt — All below the privileged army and priesthood had to work — 
Only one occupation allowed — Every citizen's home and business regis- 
tered, in Ancient Egypt — Legislation against borrowing money — In 
Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the sole tyrants — The 
king as landlord — Persian political economy — Laborers should not be 
robbed beyond the point when they would cease to produce — Carthage a 
combination or corporation fur merchandising, piracy and slave dealing — 
Carthage called a republic, but drifted into three classes, slaves, a mer- 
cenary army and an aristocracy — Theory and practice of government in 
Greece — Land laws of Lycurgus — Gold and silver banished — Constant 
struggle between the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece — Solon 
and Athens — Debt on land and slaves abolished — Legal value of silver 
coin increased by law — Timocracy, or man's rights measured by his prop- 
erty — Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats surrenders to 
tyrants — Rome a robbers' den — Reduction of the aristocracy and rise of 
the republic — Division of land among the people — Seven acres enough — 
Land assigned on two year terms — Gradual absorption of land and 
money by the equestrian order — Slaves take the place of free laborers — 
Death of Tiberius Gracchus — Overthrow of the republic — Citizens subsi- 
dized — Swallowed up by despotism and immorality. 

The recorded pages of ancient history are a very barren 
field in which to glean a knowledge of the condition of the 
people. Of wars, conquerors, kings and emperors, there is a 
surfeit. We read of great temples and palaces ; of mighty 
pyramids, towers, walls, artificial lakes and canals, but are 
rarely informed whether they were built by an enslaved peo- 
ple, or by captives of war dragged from other countries to 
perform the menial tasks of the conquerors. We are apt to 
measure the greatness of ancient nations by the monuments 
erected upon human suffering and degradation. Herodotus 
4G 



THE PRIESTHOOD HOLD LAND. 47 

estimates that it required over one hundred thousand laborers 
for thirty years to build the great pyramid. 

The most ancient seats of learning, wealth and power, of 
which we have record, are the Chaldean, Babylonian and the 
Egyptian. The empires on the Euphrates in many respects 
resembled the empires on the Nile. Both were extremely 
fertile regions. In both the agricultural systems depended 
on irrigation. Both were almost surrounded by deserts. 
The valley of the lower Nile is shut in by hills which ap- 
proach within fifteen miles of the river.* Babylon was the 
daughter of Chaldea.f The civilization of Egypt and Chal- 
dea were identical.^ Their modes of agriculture, religion, 
manners and customs, and, to some extent, their architecture 
were similar. In each slavery existed, and while laborers 
were also hired, the condition of the laboring classes was at 
once abject and unhappy. Rawlinson, one of the best author- 
ities, informs us that the lands in Egypt were held by three 
parties. The king, or monarch, had one-third, the priests 
one-third, and the army, which was largely the executive arm 
of the government, one-third. About one-fifth of the pro- 
duce was exacted as rent or tribute. The enormous labor of 
creating and maintaining the canals and lakes for irrigation, 
was done, under the supervision of the army, largely by 
slaves. To equalize and extend the period of the irrigation 
from the Nile, and prevent disastrous floods, a lake (Moeris) 
three hundred feet deep was dug ; into this a great portion of 
the floods could be drained to prevent an overflow. When 
the river fell below the point at which it could easily furnish 
w^ater for the canals, the water was drawn from the lake for 
irrigation. § A shower of rain scarcely ever falls in Egypt. 

If representative governments did not exist in Asia, it 

* Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., page 51. 

f Ibid., page 47. t Ibid., page 57. 

g Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 127. 



48 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

would be difficult to trace anything like them in Egypt. 
Nearly all these Oriental governments were theocracies. The 
priesthood represented the law, supposed to be divine law. 
In most of them the priests claimed to have some method of 
communicating with the gods. It was so in Egypt, and in 
Babylon, and in Greece the utterances of the Delphic oracle 
had great acceptance. There is a wonderful similarity in these 
governments in that respect. In Egypt the priesthood was a 
distinct and privileged class, and ranked next to the king ; 
they were not allowed to practice polygamy, although the rest 
of the people were. The priest's share of the available land 
was free from taxation or tribute.* In addition to their sacred 
functions, they promulgated the only law known. The king 
had to enter the temple each morning to worship, when it was 
customary for the priests to advise him what course to pursue. 
Even the food of the king, which was plain, was prescribed 
by law. 

Next to the priesthood stood the army. In the days of their 
power the army, under continual pay, consisted of four hun- 
dred thousand men. This army constituted the third estate 
or privileged class, and to enter it was considered an honor. 
Each soldier was allowed for the purpose of subsisting himself 
and family, irrigated land equal to " half a French acre/' free 
from all rent, tax or tribute : also, five pounds of bread, two 
pounds of meat and a quart of wine daily, f The standing 
army was, of course, a sufficient menace against all revolt or 
rebellion. 

The monarch who had an army subject to his authority, 
had also the revenue of rent, tax or tribute from at least the 
third of all the irrigated lands. Nor was this his only source 
of avenue. He levied imposts on commerce, and several 
branches of trade. A percentage of certain fisheries brought 

*Rawlinson's Ancient History, vol. i., page 143. 
t Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 151. 



PRODUCTIONS OF EGYPT. 49 

revenue. Public works were chiefly created and maintained 
by slave labor, the slaves being largely aliens, captives of war, 
or persons purchased from the Phoenicians, Greeks, or the 
semi-barbarous people in central Africa. 

As the monarch, the priests and the army owned the land, 
they thus held the real substance of power : the remainder 
of the people were divided into three classes in the following 
order of rank: shepherds, husbandmen and artificers, or 
artizans.* Each man had his place of business assigned by 
law, and no one was permitted to have two separate occupa- 
tions or professions ; nor could he make a change in his busi- 
ness very easily. This was done really or ostensibly to allow 
a fair field to each occupation. No man was allowed to be a 
useless idler in the state. Every man had to enter his name 
and business in a register. If he gave a false statement he 
was put to death. 

Under the law, people were allowed a reasonable liberty in 
their individual business, provided they did not attempt to 
interfere with the authority of the government. It was the 
boast of the early Egyptian rulers that murder was almost 
invariably punished, and the murder of a slave was as much 
a violation of the law as the murder of a freeman. No slave 
or foreigner was admitted to the immediate service of the 
prince,f an( l tnus one 0I> tne chief avenues to advancement was 
shut against them. 

Egypt was styled the granary of the world. Its chief grain 
products were wheat, barley and rye. It also produced flax 
and cotton.J Cotton was first introduced into upper Egypt 
in very early times. It was used to a considerable extent in 
manufacturing clothing for the people. The fine cotton goods 
of Egypt were greatly prized in Greece. Except the date 
palms and the sycamore, Egypt had no lofty trees. Herodotus 

* Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 153. f Ibid., page 139. • 

Heren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 349. 
5 



50 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

informs us, that " when the river is full and the plains are 
become a sea, there springs up in the water great quantities 
of lilies, called lotus by the Egyptians." These the inhabit- 
ants gather and from what is contained in them make a kind 
of bread. The root is also made into food.* Herodotus says, 
that the use of the wine press was unknown in Egypt, although 
wine was allowed to be used by the priests and the people 
were permitted to drink it at festivals. We have seen that 
the military order also consumed it. "Wine was largely 
imported from Greece, and was also obtained through the 
Phoenicians. The "father of history" informs us, that the 
common people of Egypt, at other times than festivals, 
"drank a kind of beer made from barley." It is proper to 
state, however, that vineyards were not altogether unknown 
in Egypt. Among other productions spoken of by Herodotus 
was the byblus, which is produced in shallow water. From 
it the papyrus or paper, cordage and other articles of merchan- 
dise was made. It was, in addition, prepared into food and 
its stalk chewed for its juice. 

Breeding of cattle, swine, horses, asses, mules, camels and 
goats, constituted the second great producing interest next to 
agriculture. As the Egyptians worshiped the sacred bull, 
and as rams as well as serpents were in their pantheou, we 
might have been led to expect that the Egyptians, like the 
people of India, would not have made food of cattle or sheep, 
and that this would have affected their production. It does 
not appear to have been the case, however. Horses were 
reared for war and were chiefly used by the military order 
and the aristocracy; they were likewise largely used for 
exportation.* Cattle were produced for labor as well as food. 
Large flocks of sheep were reared for the wool and were used 
for food. The period of cultivation was a very brief one in 
Egypt, the crops following immediately after the flood. 

* Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 356. 



LAWS AGAINST USURY. 51 

Plowing could hardly be said to be needed, although plowing 
and stirring the soil to considerable extent was done. The 
great object was to have the crops in at once on the fresh 
deposit, when the water abated, so that they could mature 
before the earth thoroughly dried out. Irrigating, where it 
was practicable, was carried on by canals and ditches, and 
water for the purpose was also pumped from the river. 
Indeed, the more we are enabled to learn of the Egyptians, 
the more we are forced to admit that they were not deficient 
in the arts of production. They even hatched eggs in ovens. 
Egypt had as colonies a great many cities and communities in 
Europe, Asia and Africa. It was almost as famous as Tyre, 
for dyes and cloths, and had quite a trade in gold, ivory and 
slaves, with the interior of Africa. 

Egypt, at one time, had stringent laws against usury, or, 
more correctly, against borrowing money. The legislation 
of Egypt against borrowing money, while it was done ostensi- 
bly in the interests of the people, was also a policy against the 
cumulative power of capital in money. The rulers already 
held the other sources of wealth and did not intend to have 
any rivals. This legislation against the productive powder of 
money was not peculiar to Egypt, for many of the more 
enlightened of the ancient nations did the same thing. The 
tendency of the poor and needy to pay usurious rates of interest 
is at least as old as Egypt, and when the money of a country 
has added to its other forces the power of addition and multi- 
plication, in adroit hands, it will soon draw to itself all the 
wealth that there is in any country. The Egyptian law was 
designed to prevent such a result. In Egypt, moreover, bor- 
rowing had some additional drawbacks. He who ran into 
debt in the middle portion of Egyptian history, was very apt 
to run into slavery. At the usual rate of interest it would not 
have taken very many generations to reduce the wdiole of the 
industrious population to a condition of servitude. 

Heren informs us that the later Egyptian governments 



52 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

regulated loans, fixed the rate of interest, and partially per- 
mitted a creditor to indemnify himself for a debt when he 
could do it from other property besides the person of his 
debtor. The general policy of Egypt was to prevent the ag- 
gregation of capital by usury. During a portion of her his- 
tory, the citizens of Egypt proper were not allowed to be en- 
slaved for debt. 

The manufactures of Egypt were as important and prob- 
ably as highly developed as those of any nation. Heren 
says that two or three thousand years ago their weaving was 
brought to as great or even greater perfection than ours at 
present. The same authority tells us that their dyes were 
splendid. They had a great business in fabrics of wool, flax, 
cotton, gold thread and other material. The Egyptian earth- 
enware was of very fine quality. They were also skillful 
workers in metals, gold, silver, bronze and brass. After the 
waste and destruction of three thousand years her architecture 
presents the most imposing monuments of human power and 
skill. 

While the area of Egypt was limited, its food-producing 
power was great, thus creating large populations : for this 
reason we find the government had a fixed and continuous 
policy of encouraging emigration.* They sent colonies to all 
parts of the world, carrying their laws, customs and boasted 
politeness with them. Homer tells us that the Ethiopians 
were divided from the rising to the setting of the sun. This 
appeared to have been more for the purpose of disposing of 
their surplus population than with a policy of possessing 
colonies and retaining them. For many centuries there was 
the closest relations between the cities of Egypt, Phoenicia, 
Asia Minor and Greece. To Egypt the scholars of Greece 
and other countries resorted to finish their education and 
acquire information as to her arts and literature. 

* Rollin's Ancient History, Vol. i., page 151. 



DECADENCE OF EGYPT. 53 

Many changes occurred in the history of Egypt. The Ethi- 
opians conquered Egypt and held it for several generations. 
After that there were many changes in the rulers and yet no 
fundamental changes in the constitution- of its government. 
Caste ruled in Egypt. The military, the priesthood and the 
monarch held the wealth as well as the power of Egypt in 
their grasp. So long as these three agreed the people had no 
power to resist them. 

Heren informs us that Psammetichus overthrew and finally 
forced the military caste of the Egyptians to emigrate to 
Ethiopia. He and his successors stripped them of their 
lands, and the later rulers depended nearly altogether on 
mercenary soldiers, chiefly from other countries. To sustain 
them, heavier exactions were made from the people. In order 
to keep the turbulent spirits of this unpatriotic army employed, 
and to offer them the inducement of plunder, indispensable 
for such soldiers, foreign conquests were attempted, chiefly 
in Asia, and these were not always successful. "Weakened, 
robbed and dispirited, it is no wonder that Egypt succumbed 
to the Persian conqueror. It is significant of the indifference 
of the people, that he was able in one battle and a siege of 
ten days, to decide the fate of the whole country. Cambyses 
lost an army of seventy thousand men, endeavoring to pene- 
trate the upper Nile, destroyed by the inhospitable deserts 
rather than hostilities. From this period forward the history 
of Egypt is one of wars, conquests, and political vicissitudes, 
in which the people suffer from one set of kingly robbers 
after another, Darius, Xerxes, Ochus, Alexander. Then for 
nearly three hundred years Egyptian history is again elevated 
by the dynasty of the Ptoiemys and then came Caesar, Anthony 
and the Romans, and for more than three hundred years it 
was a Roman province : its wealth was drained to benefit an 
alien nation. Then came the conquest of the Persians once 
more, and then of the Saracen and Turk. In the midst of all 
these, Egypt, the cradle of human civilization and power, has 



54 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

sunk so low that do people are now as wretched, spiritless 
or poverty-stricken, and this notwithstanding the country 
possesses the finest natural resources. 

The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates were richer than 
even the Nile. Herodotus tells us that no country in the 
world is so fertile, aud that the blade of wheat is often four 
fingers in width. Babylon, Nineveh and all their ruling 
cities were dens of plunder. The monarch owned the land 
and demanded heavy tribute from it. The system of irrigation 
was in charge of the king and his subordinates, while the 
wretched agriculturist was ground to death between the exac- 
tions of the monarch and his horde of petty princes, deputies and 
tax collectors. Herodotus tells us of one governor who derived 
from his province two bushels of silver each day in tribute, 
and who had a stud of sixteen thousand mares. Hosts of slaves 
captured in war were employed to perform the most menial 
tasks, but the condition of the poor native laborer was hardly 
any better. He was generally so severely burdened by regular 
taxes and special tribute for war purposes, that it was almost 
impossible for him to retain a bare subsistence. If he made 
more he was obliged to conceal it, or expose himself to petty 
banditti, or further exaction from deputies of royal robbers. 

The worst governments known to men have been govern- 
ments of deputies. A royal ruler may have an occasional 
gleam of greatness about him, and even his position invites 
from him some exercise of magnanimity, but a deputy has all 
the vices of his master added to his own. No portion of the 
globe has been so governed by deputies as the various Asiatic 
countries. These ancient deputies, local governors and petty 
satraps, to some extent resemble the directors of our mod- 
(ii) railroads, whose first business is to get rich themselves, 
and finally, to extract from their employees all they can for 
the benefit of the corporation. An Eastern potentate rarely 
made any inquiries of his deputy so long as he sent forward 
a liberal amount of tribute. 



ARTAXERXES. 55 

The gods of the Assyrians were gods of war. War and 
conquest ran through their whole dominion. They adopted 
a somewhat novel policy intended to open a field of enterprise 
to the ambitious at home, and maintain a subordinate popula- 
tion in the seats of empire. As fast as they, by force of arms, 
subjugated states, they sent all the inhabitants thereof who 
might be troublesome to them, as slaves, to the country of 
the conqueror, and colonized the countries taken with num- 
bers of their own people* who thus became the local rulers of 
the conquered provinces.* The vanquished people were sub- 
ject to tribute. Phoenicia and Israel fell before them. They 
carried their arms with great atrocity into Armenia and the 
other northern provinces, and in case of revolt or refusal to 
pay tribute, flayed the insurgents alive. They conquered a 
portion of Media and built fortresses in that country. Egypt 
paid tribute. Damascus became an outpost for their troops, 
and while Arabia did not entirely succumb, it was subject to 
their influence. Indeed, Assyria is the first great conquering 
power we encounter in the history of the world. It united 
the Semetic races for the first time of which we have record.")" 
In all its annals of blood and violence it would be vain to 
seek for statutes maintaining human rights, a religion founded 
on justice, or a people Avhose interests were ever considered. 
An empire resting on an aristocracy of soldiers, and main- 
tained by tribute and slavery, is all that can be discovered. 

The founding of a new Persian empire, about 230 A.D., 
under Artaxerxes, was of significant importance in this, that 
it re-established an authority strong enough to cope with the 
Romans, if not to drive them from Asia, and substituted the 
rule of the Aryan Persians for that of the ruder Scyths of 
the North. Five hundred years had elapsed between the old 
Persian empire and this revival.. In the meantime, Jew, 
Christian, Greek and pagan had spread their forms of worship, 

* 
* Von Rankes Universal History, page 81. f Ibid. 



56 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

and, to a more limited extent, their forms of society. Artax- 
erxes, as soon as his authority was placed on a secure footing, 
re-established the religion of the Magi, and the doctrines of 
Zoroaster. In a brief space the places of worship of all the 
other religions were closed, and, although the Zoroastrian 
doctrines were not supposed to be persecuting, Artaxerxes, at 
least, was proscriptive. It is said in the Zendavesta that 
there were twin deities, the spirits of good and evil, Or- 
muzd, the creator, and Ahriman, the destroyer, and that 
their battle is fought in a being called Time. All created 
things are regarded as designed for the struggle against evil. 
The doctrine that the good deity only permits evil was not 
held by the Persians. Their code of morals taught that he is 
a wise man who brings his offering to the altar, and a good 
man who has a well-ordered household, and produces the 
greatest quantity of corn, fodder, and fruit-bearing trees. In 
the sacred books little is said of monarchy. 

One of Artaxerxes' maxims was that "The king should 
never use the sword when the cane would answer/ 7 * which 
merely indicated the gradations in despotism. He also held 
that it was the true policy of the government to make the 
people feel absolute security, f This was a very good maxim, 
but how far it was possible, under a satrapy in which the local 
ruler was kept in his place by forwarding a certain annual 
tribute, is not so clear. Another of his celebrated opinions 
was : " There can be no power without an army, no army 
without money, no money without agriculture, and no agri- 
culture without justice." J This, doubtless, sounds well. 
"What is meant I suppose by " no agriculture without justice," 
is that the exactions of the rulers must never reach a point 
at which the agriculturist would cease producing. This sug- 
gests the cause of the ruin of nearly all these governments. 

* Rawlinson's 7th Monarchy, vol. i., page 67. 

f Ibid., page CI. j Ibid. 



PHOENICIAN POLICY AND IDEAS. 57 

To temper rapacity with moderation may not require much 
"justice/' but some brains. We are further told by the same 
eminent authority we have quoted, that " heavy tributes were 
laid on the land." * In point of fact these monarchs claimed 
to own all the land, not only of their native country, but the 
countries they conquered. They were the mighty potentates 
who could decide on what conditions men should live upon 
the earth. 

No great constitutional government was formed in Asia with 
a complete code of law, much less a republic. The towns and 
communities had their rule and customs, and none of the 
empires we have described charged themselves with the faith- 
ful execution of what we consider the legitimate functions of 
government. They conquered, plundered and exacted tribute. 
The wars were merely between those who claimed this 
privilege. 

One of the most wonderful forms of society that ever 
existed in ancient or modern times was what is styled the Phoe- 
nician. Herodotus tells us that " the Phoenicians emigrated 
from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and having made 
their settlements, applied themselves to merchandise." There 
was an ancient Tyre on the Red Sea, and also a place of 
that name on the Persian Gulf. In the time of the Cartha- 
ginians there was also a Tyre on the Mediterranean in the 
west. They seem, in their migration, to have had a habit, 
like the people of these United States, of reproducing and 
multiplying the old names. Heren informs us that all the 
nations who traded on the Mediterranean were at the same 
time pirates, and it was their particular business to kidnap 
men from the coasts, f The inlets on the coastline between 
Egypt and Greece gave shelter to a thriving and industrious 
nation of traders and seamen .{ 

* Rawlinson's 7th Monarchy, vol. i., page 112. 

f Heren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 369. 

t Von Eanke's Universal History, page 60. 



58 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

The communities of the Phoenicians might be styled 
independent cities. Tyre adopted a constitutional monarchy 
in the days of Solomon. There never was a Phoenician em- 
pire. They remembered and maintained their own kinship, 
and aided each other, and refused to take part in military 
operations against any branch of their own people. As they 
freely intermarried with all the people where they planted 
colonies, their identity was maintained by the distinct reli- 
gious and commercial ideas that animated them. Labor was 
performed by slaves. Their armies were largely of mercena- 
ries hired from all nations. They excelled in the arts and 
manufactures. Their ships carried raw material from every 
nation, and carried back rich manufactures. Their religion 
was a mixture of Babylonian idolatry and Parseeism, and 
closely resembled types found in the Arabian peninsula before 
the time of Mahomet. Its purpose was to blind and overawe 
the masses rather than teach pure morality. They wor- 
shiped in " high places." Baal and Astarte were among 
their divinities. The sun was an object of adoration, as the 
eye of God, and the summer solstice was their great festival. 
Their rites were cruel and unclean. Human sacrifices stained 
their altars, and oxen, horses and other animals were also 
sacrificed. They passed their children through the fire to 
Moloch by placing them in the arms of the frightful metal 
deity, Baal, that dropped them in the furnace. Immorality 
also disgraced their forms of worship. 

Gold, however, was the chief god they worshiped. For it 
their ships sailed beyond the pillars of Hercules and down 
the African coast, where they procured gold dust, not from 
the desert sands, which are never golden ; but they obtained 
it together with slaves and ivory from the interior and the 
great mountainous districts in Africa, which were, and are still 
supposed to be rich in gold. They visited Gaul (France), 
Britain, Hibernia, and Scandinavia. From Britain they pro- 
cured tin, and from the mountains of Greece and Asia Minor, 



COMMERCIAL POWER OF PHOENICIA. 59 

copper, and lead and tin also from Spain. Their bronzes 
and brass ornaments were the admiration of nations. They 
procured the murex principally from the coasts of Greece, 
and from them produced their most famous dyes. Their 
looms wove the finest fabrics. Wool they chiefly obtained 
from Greece and Arabia. They manufactured and had a 
commerce in amber, and it is believed they traded in the Baltic 
and thus obtained it. It would not be surprising if they had 
visited what is now China, and it is also believed that they 
visited the western as well as the eastern coast of the Americas. 

The Phoenicians were a strange nation of commercial 
adventurers. They have been styled the Jews of ancient times, 
but differ from them very widely in many particulars. Their 
ships sailed to "the uttermost parts of the earth." The 
rowers and other laborers were slaves; the fighting force, 
mercenaries from all countries, organized and governed by 
Phoenicians. In their voyages to many of the countries 
they visited they were very secretive. None were permitted 
to have knowledge of their more important maritime secrets, 
save societies or associations bound by obligations of secrecy. 
From this has arisen the idea that the masonic order origi- 
nated with them. 

The purpose of their secrecy was to prevent other nations 
from finding out their sources of trade. Their vessels watched 
those ships which attempted to pass the straits of Gibraltar 
or pillars of Hercules. Besides hand-to-hand conflicts when 
vessels were driven together, trained slingers from the Balearic 
islands, and bowmen, waged this naval warfare. The most 
important manoeuvre in these early naval engagements was 
to run each other down. The Phoenicians acquired great 
skill in making large and strong vessels for this purpose, 
and they had them manned with numerous sweeps worked 
by a great body of rowers, in order to turn rapidly and be 
driven with great force upon the enemy. To this they chiefly 
owed their supremacy on the sea. 



60 AXCIEXT EMPIRES. 

"While their traditional policy was to place the world under 
tribute by trade, and to plant colonies to aid them in that 
purpose, we do not often find them overrunning great landed 
territories that could be taken from them by more powerful 
nations, and laid under tribute. Their stations were trading 
stations, often limited in extent and many of them abandoned 
on the appearance of serious opposition. With the Egyptians 
they tried to cultivate alliance, but as the dwellers on the 
Nile were also a commercial people, they were continually 
embroiled in wars with them. The Phoenicians were masters 
of the Mediterranean before the Greeks became a maritime 
power ; as the Greek colonies pushed out into Sicily and Asia 
Minor the wars between the Greeks and Phoenicians began. 
"When Xerxes the Persian invaded Greece he without much 
difficulty effected an alliance with the Phoenicians and Car- 
thaginians, both of whom furnished ships. When Alexander 
invaded Asia he had not forgotten the share Tyre had in the 
former wars and laid siege to it. Nebuchadnezzar had taken 
and destroyed the old Tyre on the mainland and the inhabit- 
ants never rebuilt it but took shelter on the island where the 
city was four miles in circumference. There with their fleets 
they supposed they were impregnable. The siege by Alex- 
ander lasted eight months. Tyre fell in the year 332 b. c. 
It maintained some little importance afterward but never re- 
gained its power. Before the last calamity and during its 
various troubles, many of its citizens fled to Carthage and 
other colonies, and carried with them much wealth. 

Carthage had the most remarkable history of any people 
of the Phoenician stock. The founders of Carthage in 
making the settlement purchased from the native inhabitants 
a tract of ground for the use of the city, and as they were a 
commercial people they agreed that the greater part of the 
price should be an annual tribute. As soon as they became 
strong enough they went to war with iheir creditors and thus 
cancelled the obligation. They did more; in a very short time 



REVENUES OF CARTHAGE. 61 

that region of Africa styled Libya was placed under tribute.* 
A part of Libya was susceptible of cultivation. Whether the 
inhabitants were originally agriculturists or became so under 
the influence of Carthage is not very clear. They produced 
not only grain in considerable quantities, but other articles. 
To keep these native tribes in subjection, they placed colonies 
of their own people among them, who intermarried with 
them, and these people were known as Carthaginian-Libyans. 
To. the east, west and south of them were nomadic tribes. 
The nomads were not only in their pay as mercenaries, but as 
common carriers, regular caravans to the valley of the Nile 
and Central Africa being established. From the foundation 
of Carthage to its overthrow, about seven hundred years 
elapsed. It always pretended to be a republic. It was the 
boast of Carthaginians that for five hundred years there was 
no considerable sedition to disturb, or tyrant to oppress their 
people. f They selected three different authorities, which 
were supposed to balance each other, or act as counterpoises. 
They had a senate, two supreme magistrates, called suffetas, 
and popular assemblies for deliberation. As Carthage grew, 
the tribunal of one hundred was added. The suffetas were 
chosen each year. The senate was composed of old, distin- 
guished, and, finally, of rich persons, for a man had to be 
possessed of a certain amount of property before he was eligi- 
ble. J While it has been alleged that no office could be ob- 
tained except by election, it is pretty certain that the wealthy 
classes filled nearly all positions of power. As no salaries were 
paid, they were really the only persons who could maintain 
the degree of state required. 

Carthage derived her revenue from customs on all articles 
exported or imported ; from tribute and from mines which 
she worked by slave labor, in all countries where she could 

* Heren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i., page 31. 

t Kollin's Ancient History, vol. L, page 191. % Ibid., page 193. 



62 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

find them. In times of great necessity, her tribute amounted 
to half the production.* Aristotle points out what he calls 
the defects in the government of Carthage — " First, that it 
permitted a man to have more than one occupation ; second, 
that a certain estate or amount of wealth was required to 
render a man eligible for the higher offices ; and, thirdly, that 
they used money to carry elections." While the assemblages 
of the people were supposed to be the highest tribunal, every- 
thing tended to aristocracy. They were a purely and highly 
commercial people. Everything was bought and sold in Car- 
thage. The adventurers of her own and every other country 
were paid to fight her battles. The great, wealthy families 
supplied the generals, although they were supposed to be 
elected. The families of Hanno and the Barcas furnished 
the most notable, among the latter, Hannibal, Hamilcar 
and Asdrubal. Almost half of Africa and Europe were, at 
different times, in the pay of Carthage. f Tribes of Gauls, 
at an early period, fought in her armies. The small force of 
Carthaginians constituted the most splendid corps. Next to 
these were the Spanish and Celtic troops. Italy furnished 
several tribes, and even Greece. The Balearic slingers could 
hurl stones with sufficient force to break shield and buckler. 
One of her most formidable forces was the Arab cavalry, 
who, in their rapid wheeling and fierce charges, often decided 
the fate of battle. Ten thousand of these nomadic cavalry 
were in their service at one time. Their armies must have 
produced a curious effect in the field, and Polybius says the 
Carthaginians purposely composed their armies of people of 
different languages so that they could not conspire together 
against them. It must, however, have been a difficult force 
to handle. AVe are told that these troops were largely armed 
with spear and knife, until after the battle of Thrasymene, 

* Heren's Ancient Nations, vol. i., j>age 149. 

t Heren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i., page 250. 






ARISTOCRACY OF WEALTH. 03 

when Hannibal exchanged them for the Roman arms. In 
the Roman war with Regulus, the Carthaginian fleet was 
composed of three hundred and fifty vessels and one hundred 
and sixty thousand men, including mercenary soldiers and 
slave rowers.* 

In this strange organization we find an empire almost with- 
out a country : an aggregation of men, with money as the 
motive power : great wars fought without patriotism, and 
whole nations enslaved and purchased by an ingenious, active, 
unscrupulous and selfish race. A few great families were 
very wealthy. The city was a citadel for spoils. There was 
absolutely nothing in their economy upon which a happy, 
prosperous working class could permanently thrive. Her 
commerce was selfish, secret, exacting. Her morals were low, 
and uttered no protest against hopeless slavery, piracy, slave- 
dealing, or conquest for aggrandisement. Her religion in- 
spired cruelty and melancholy. When it was cheaper to 
bribe the councils of her enemies than to fight them, they did 
not hesitate to do so, and during her struggle with Rome, 
Jugurtha turned his back on the imperial city, and said, 
" There is a city for sale if you can only find a purchaser." 

Their history instructs us that an aristocracy of wealth 
may become as dangerous as a landed aristocracy. The 
liberality of the rich chiefly consisted in deporting the poorer 
classes to some of their many colonies, where they would 
enable the rulers to extend their spider's web, and would not 
remain to foment disturbances at home. Some of the ancient, 
moralizing philosophers tell us that when the people permit- 
ted the senate largely to rule, it governed well, as the sena- 
tors were wise persons of acknowledged character, who had a 
deep interest in the state. Polybius informs us that when the 
people attempted, or did take the rule in their own hands, 
they were led by factions and demagogues, until this resulted 

* Heren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i., page 247. 



64 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

in the overthrow of Carthage. The truth is that it was im- 
possible to govern this central den of pirates, robbers and 
thieves, by a government of the people, unless on principles 
of equal distribution. 

Greece affords us the most elaborate and benignant theories 
of government and the most sorrowful aggregate of statistics. 
On endeavoring to obtain data we are met by another difficulty ; 
it is extremely hard to sift out legend and mythical figures 
from plain reliable facts. Most of the old Greek worthies 
were, if we are to believe them, descended from the gods. 
Their gods, moreover, were much too numerous to afford a 
very elevated grade of deity. If we estimate these fanciful 
personages, their ways, works and belongings, including all the 
satyrs and other monsters by whom they were surrounded, 
they do not afford us a very high opinion of the morals of a 
people who could invent and look up to such a pantheon. 

Greece, unlike Egypt and Babylon, had no great river with 
its rich grain products, and thus was not naturally adapted 
for a despotism. It was mountainous. Most of it was 
chiefly valuable for raising flocks and herds, and while it pos- 
sessed some fine valleys, no inconsiderable portion of it was 
naturally very poor. This wonderful cluster of mountains, 
islands, bays, deep gulfs and peninsulas, seemed to mark the 
region as the home of shepherds aud fishermen, or the com- 
mercial marts for Asia, Africa and Europe. There is little 
reason to doubt the fact that Greece, in remote periods, had 
been the theatre on which horde after horde had settled and 
ship-load after ship-load found a haven from the horrors of 
war or the pressure of tyranny. It was the boast of the 
Hellenes that they were descended from the gods, and the people 
of Attica, Ionians, claimed to be autochthones. From all that 
can be gathered, the tribes or race styled Pelasgi, seemed to 
have occupied all lower Greece and most of the islands, when 
they were intruded upon by the Ionians and Dorians. One 
or two irruptions came from the north, from or beyond Thrace, 



LAKED^EMON. 65 

and seemed to be a martial people driven from their homes by 
some political convulsion. It is also equally certain that the 
Phoenicians had stations and trade on these shores and con- 
tinued to have them until the commercial and political rivalry, 
incident to the growth and progress of the Greeks, drove them 
elsewhere. The first money used in Greece was Phoenician 
money.* Even before the time that the Phoenicians had 
passed from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to the Medi- 
terranean, or at least, before they had risen to be a great 
maritime power, Thothmes III. of Egypt, had conquered 
Cyprus and Crete, and many islands and parts of Greece, and 
founded colonies there, f It is not a little singular, that one 
of the early cities founded in Greece, Thebes, should be named 
after the capital of Egypt. 

Herodotus relates that the Phoenicians who came with Cad- 
mus to Thebes, introduced letters along with other branches of 
knowledge to the Greeks. He also informs us that the Ionian 
books were made of Egyptian papyrus. It is sufficient for the 
purpose of this work, to show that the elements out of which 
intellectual Greece grew were of mixed origin, and that some of 
the most enlightened of ancient nations contributed toward it. 

The Lakedsemonians long maintained their contempt for 
literature and the arts. The ambition of the citizen was to be 
trained in athletic exercises and inured to hardship and war. 
Slaves were obtained to perform their menial labor. In early 
times, according to Herodotus, the Spartans were the most 
laAvlessof all the Greeks, and foreigners were afraid to approach 
them. Their early history is one of turbulent disorder and 
incessant war. Some time between 820 and 996 before Christ, 
it is related that a prince or philosopher named Lycurgus, 
after having visited foreign seats of learning, undertook to 
restore order and give a constitution to Lakedsemonia.J . As a 

* Von Eanke's Universal History, page 128. 
t Rawlinson's Ancient Egypt, vol. ii., page 255. 
% Grote's Greece, vol. i., page 464. 



66 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

preliminary, he consulted the Delphic oracle in Boetia, proba- 
bly to give an appearance of religious authority to what he 
intended to do. AVe learn, that even in that early period/ 
nearly every city in Greece had an aristocratic and a democratic 
or plebeian class. The avaricious and grasping spirit of a few 
had reduced the masses to great poverty, which they, as a 
martial people, were no longer inclined to endure. As Lycur- 
gus belonged to the privileged orders it is more than probable 
that his attempts were tolerated by the rich in order to prevent 
worse mischief. Before his time the land had been monopo- 
lized until the masses of the people had no land. He induced 
the people to ordain that the land should belong to the com- 
monwealth, and succeeded in procuring a new distribution of 
it, founded on the idea that each citizen of the state was entitled 
to a share sufficient to produce a maintenance.* Observing 
the aggressive power of money, he adopted the novel expedient 
of banishing it from the state. Whatever we may think of 
some of his measures, he was, undoubtedly, conscious of the 
dangerous tendencies of accumulated capital in money. Plu- 
tarch, in his sketch upon Lycurgus, says, that in banishing 
gold and silver from the community he substituted stamped 
iron, which had little or no value in itself, and therefore could 
not be exchanged for foreign luxuries. To correct the abuses 
of luxury and the enervating effect of refinement, indolence 
and excess, laws were framed to provide plain diet, plain 
garments, and induce simple habits and self denial. The 
children at a certain age were the property of and under care 
of the state, and their training was rigid. The system was to 
make them warriors rather than peaceful citizens. The form 
of government he adopted, whatever it might pretend to be, 
was certainly anything but democratic. It was a close, 
unscrupulous, well-obeyed oligarchy. f The senate was a body 

* Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 332. 
t (J rote's Greece, vol. i., page 474. 



LAND IN GREECE MONOPOLISED. 67 

of twenty-eight " ancient men" appointed for life. They had 
two kings, who also sat in the Agora and took part in its 
deliberations, thus making it a body of thirty persons.* In 
addition to these senators, and to give this oligarchy a popular 
aspect, Sparta had periodic assemblages of the people, in the 
open air, between the river Knakion and the bridge. No 
discussion was permitted in these assemblies. No amendments 
could be offered. They simply voted on the propositions sent 
them by the aristocratic senate. Such was the constitution of 
Lycurgus. It is only surprising that he should have been 
permitted to carry out such reforms as he instituted. Nothing 
but the desperate condition to which society was reduced 
rendered it possible. 

Amoug the struggling Grecian states the great rival of 
Sparta was Athens. Its institutions, simple at first, soon 
drifted into disorder. Athens almost from the beginning 
until the time of Solon was in the hands of an oligarchy. 
A few great families controlled her concerns. They had done 
so in a manner to threaten the very existence of the state. 
The rich and most productive land, the plains and valleys 
were monopolized by them. The masses were driven to the 
poor land in the mountains. Commerce and sea-faring were 
one great source of Athenian wealth. This also fell into a 
few hands. The -real estate held by the poorer classes was 
mortgaged, the common mode being to set up a pillar with 
the amount of the debt and to whom due engraved on it. 
Under a law general in all that region a man who ran in debt 
could be sold as a slave, — sold to labor in his own country, 
or sold to a foreigner. Sometimes to escape from debt a man 
would sell his children. Families were thus torn and scat- 
tered. As the citizens of Attica were not totally spiritless, it 
is scarcely wonderful that they were ready to end this intoler- 
able state of affairs at any cost. To facilitate the matter the 

* Grote's Greece, vol. i., page 468. 



68 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

leading aristocratic families fell out among themselves.* In 
this condition of affairs Solon appeared. He had been elected 
archon 594 before Christ. The archons had succeeded the 
kings and were at first hereditary and then appointed for 
ten years and finally every year : at that time there were nine 
of them having varying functions. Their duties were execu- 
tive and judicial. The chief archon had the power of life 
and death. The archons had to be selected from families 
that had been free for three generations. Solon belonged to 
one of the first aristocratic families, an ancestor, Codrus, being 
one of the most eminent archons. It is said that his father 
had wasted much of his substance in prodigality, which caused 
Solon in his earlier years to devote himself to commerce, and 
in this way he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. It 
seems that about the time of his election as archon, the long- 
continued suffering and debasement of the poor, the injustice 
of the rich, the corruption of the ruling powers and the attend- 
ant evils had reached a point when the laws could not be 
administered. The mutiny of the poor Thetes and uneasiness 
of the middle classes made all parties willing to confer extra- 
ordinary authority on Solon. 

His first great act was the abolition of slavery, so far as 
the citizens of Athens and Attica were concerned, f This, 
however, did not include the abolition of alien slavery. Not 
only did he prohibit the enslavement of citizens for the future, 
but all who had been enslaved were declared free. His next 
step modified the cruel law of Draco, which inflicted death 
for any offense. The death penalty was now only to be 
inflicted in cases of homicide, or treason against the state.J 
The next step of Solon was to cancel at once all debts in 
which the debtor had borrowed on his person or his lands. 
It swept off all the numerous mortgages on the lands in 

* Von Ranke's Universal History, page 138. 

t Ibid., page 141. 

X Plutarch's Lives, vol. i., page 135. 



CHANGE OF COIN STANDARDS. 69 

Attica, leaving them free.* These, however, were not the 
only debts in the state. Those who were a little better off 
than the poorest were still in debt; and, as the first measure 
of relief, the Seisachtheia, rendered the middle class less able 
to meet their creditors, as a measure of general relief for the 
debtor class, he increased the legal value of the silver coin, 
making what was worth seventy-three drachms worth one 
hundred. f It appears, however, that the Greeks, in common 
with other nations, had the two standards of gold and silver. 
Gold had flowed into Greece until it was worth, as the 
standards stood, considerably less than silver.^ In our day, 
when the more rapid production of silver has reduced its com- 
mercial value relatively below gold, there is a demand from the 
moneyed interests of the country that the silver standard be 
changed, by purchasing and putting into the coinage a suffi- 
cient quantity of silver to bring it up to the present price of 
the gold standard. Solon's remedy was just the other way, 
I presume on the theory that, if in a time of public distress 
it was necessary to disturb the standard, it was better to do 
it in the interest of the debtor, rather than the creditor class. 
In these measures of relief, Solon did not provide a distribu- 
tion of the land, which the popular, or democratic party 
expected. The poor railed against Solon for not doing so, 
and the rich railed against him for the loss of their money. 
The most careless observation of the work of Solon will show 
that he was no democrat, but merely sought to effect in that 
crisis a compromise between the aristocracy and the people. 
An amazing circumstance is recorded which exhibits the state 
of society. Three friends in whom he had confidence saw 
him while engaged on his laws, and learned from him that he 
had concluded not to touch the land question, but confine his 
relief measures to the abolition of citizen slavery and debt. 

* Grote's Greece, vol. i., page 582. f Ibid., page 583. 

X Von Eanke's Universal History, page 142. 



70 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

Profiting by the information thus obtained, they borrowed 
largely, and with the money purchased lands. By this sharp 
performance they were, when Solon's laws were promulgated, 
absolved from their debt, and owners of the land. The 
sufferers were not slow to charge Solon with the transac- 
tion. The lawmaker, to remove the suspicion this affair 
occasioned, discharged his debtors to the extent of five tal- 
ents.* Solon was willing to continue the magistracy in the 
hands of the rich men, but resolved to take the people, in some 
shape, into the other parts of the government. He consti- 
tuted the areopagus of those who had been archons for one 
year. He, as an archon, became a member of this new 
body. The people, Solon divided into four classes. First, 
those whose annual income was equal to five hundred me- 
dimni of corn, or upwards. Five hundred medimni of corn 
is nearly seven hundred bushels. One medimni of corn, at 
that time, was «qual to one drachma in money. Those whose 
income equalled from three to five hundred drachma composed 
the second class. Those who had between two and three 
hundred, the third class. The fourth class, by far the most 
numerous, was composed of those persons who did not possess 
land that could yield two hundred medimni. The first class 
was alone eligible to the archonship, and to all commands. 
The second class were called the knights, or horsemen of the 
state, as being able to keep a horse and perform military ser- 
vice in that capacity. The third class, called the Zeugitae, 
formed the heavy-armed infantry, and were bound to serve 
the state, each with his full panoply. Each of these three 
classes were entered in the public schedule as possessing tax- 
able property, but this tax diminished according to the scale 
of the income, being a graduated income tax. The first class 
was rated at twelve times the size of his income, the second at 
ten and the third at five. The fourth, and largest class, was 

* Plutarch's Lives, vol. i., page 140. 



INHERITANCE IN LANDS. 71 

not considered to have taxable incomes, and were styled 
Thetes. Many in the fourth class who had incomes from 
one to two hundred drachmas were not exactly poor, and the 
term Thete, as ultimately applied to a poor citizen without 
property, did not properly belong to them. Aristotle called 
this a Timocracy, in which a man's rights, duties, functions, 
honors and responsibilities were measured according to his 
property. To show the relative values it has been stated that 
a sheep was worth a drachma, the price of a bushel and a third 
of grain, and an ox five drachmas. It is almost impossible 
to get even an approximate estimate of the wages of a poor 
landless Thete. He worked at the harvest and at odd jobs ; 
traveled over the country to pick up work where he could, 
and, it is stated, was generally very glad to get work for his 
board and clothes. The new legislative body, the council of 
four hundred, determined all questions submitted to them. 
As the fourth estate could hold no office, they had merely a 
voice in selecting from among the other classes. Under 
this system the middle classes were intended to be a counter- 
poise or balance against the aristocratic classes. With this 
government all the citizens were forced to be contented. Solon 
enacted other laws regulating inheritance or bequests. Land 
could not be devised to any but the legal heirs, and personal 
property only in certain cases. He enacted laws regulating 
marriage and expenditures at weddings, funerals, etc. He had 
a singular law disfranchising all who remained neutral during 
a revolution or disturbance. He attempted to regulate ex- 
ports by providing that nothing should be exported except 
oil. Attica, however, was largely a commercial community, 
and it does not appear that this law was, to any extent, en- 
forced. He had, also, statutes regulating trades, and forbid- 
ding emigrants from entering the state, except useful artisans, 
who renounced their old state and came to be permanent 
citizens. 

It does not appear that the special enactments of Solon 



72 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

survived very long, except laws relating to slavery and the 
punishment of crimes. The aristocracy, as matters quieted 
down, had great advantages from possessing the best part of 
the country, and they soon had the state as full of intrigues as 
ever. Solon gave the people some power, but he left them 
too weak to cope with a rich oligarchy. 

Perhaps the oldest and happiest form of government is a 
city or town with its surrounding country, independent in 
itself, and controlling its own interests. With a free govern- 
ment within, and secure against the invasion of outside 
tyrants, possessing political organizations designed solely for 
the public welfare, we can conceive that such a state offers the 
highest field for human development. Greece affords the 
world a precedent for part of this picture. She did not lack 
theories of government, but in the turbulent beginnings of 
each state the seeds of inequality were planted, chiefly by 
permitting the lands to drift into the hands of a privileged 
class. The Persian invasion unified Greece. The states had 
been, to some extent, held together by the Olympic, Pythian 
and other games, and the Delphic oracle. While the com- 
mon danger aroused patriotic feeling against the Persian, and 
all shared in the historic glory of Marathon, Salamis and 
Plataea, it unfortunately encouraged the martial spirit. The 
aristocrats of Athens, when the battle of Plataea was still 
pending, contemplated treason to their country, and the over- 
throw of the growing democracy by Persian rule.* 

The Peloponnesian war was not only a war against the 
growth of Athens, but of aristocracy against the growing 
democracy of the capital of Attica. With the triumph of 
the oligarchs came the change. The conquest of Greece by 
the Macedonian king was only rendered possible because the 
people every where had been placed under the feet of aristo- 
crats. Then followed the Roman conquests and the steady 
decline of the Grecian people. 

* Timayenis Greece, page 97. 



GRECIAN SLAVE LABOR. 73 

Her artists had filled Greece with splendid monuments. 
Her philosophers and historians filled the world with their 
ideas, and gave history its first clear, intelligent record. The 
science of government was profoundly studied. Plato's ideal 
republic still allures, and the speculations of the adroit, shrewd 
Aristotle, still interest. It is reported by Plutarch, that when 
Solon was planning his reforms and new constitution for 
Athens, he was laughed at by Anardin, who asked him if he 
supposed he could " restrain the covetousness and avarice of 
his countrymen by written laws, since these were but spider's 
webs that might catch the poor and weak, but were easily 
broken by the mighty and rich." Every convulsion which at 
its close left the aristocrats in possession of their privileges 
was followed by their slowly regaining political power. The 
other cause of Greciau decay was slavery. Only in a few 
cities and states of Greece were the citizens exempt from being 
made slaves, and in them all, at least one third of the popu- 
lation were alien slaves. These were of every race and color. 
The aristocrats worked their estates with slaves. Among 
these slaves were mechanics and artisans. It was no wonder 
that the poor Thetes, poor citizens without land, were in more 
wretched plight than even the slaves. All the philosophy of 
her schoolmen could not rise above such a condition of society. 
Their literature, science and art, only illuminated its ghastly 
horrors. 

There was an ancient city and state near the city of Rome, 
from which it is said Rome, in its youth, derived a knowledge of 
letters, the arts, architecture, weights, measures and surveying. 
The Etruscans, if not of Phoenician origin, resembled the Phoeni- 
cians so closely in the arts they possessed, their manufactures, 
their city by the sea, and their general habits and characteris- 
tics, that they at least copied after them. They were merchants, 
manufacturers, sailors, pirates and slave dealers. Their city 
was of massive architecture. They employed mercenary sol- 
diers, and appear to have been an independent state or city of 



74 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

aristocrats. All the menial or disagreeable labor was per- 
formed by slaves. Other nations warred on the land, they 
warred and plundered on the sea, and where the prisoners 
they took were not ransomed by their friends, they were 
treated with terrible and merciless cruelty. The government 
of the Etruscans was an oligarchy with hardly a redeeming 
trait. The lucumones were at once civil rulers, military 
rulers, landed proprietors and priests. * The government 
was maintained by, and for, class interests, and the condition 
of the people was helpless, depressed and wretched. There 
was no separation of the functions of government. The same 
men were law-makers, judges, governors; they imposed and 
collected taxes, and commanded her armies and navies. 

It was from this people, that the men who founded Rome 
claimed to have learned nearly all they knew of civilization. 
In its original state, Rome was but a small castle on the sum- 
mit of the Palatine Hill. The founder, to give it strength and 
a distinct nationality, hoisted a standard, which indicated that 
it was a common asylum for criminals, debtors or murderers 
from all countries. Before the death of the founder, these 
outlaws had covered with their habitations the Palatine, Capi- 
toline, Aventine and Esquiline hills, with Mounts Coelius 
and Quirinalis. 

After a turbulent history, in which Rome and the provinces 
she was continually acquiring steadily increased in plunder 
and population, the people began to obtain a higher concep- 
tion of government. It may be imagined that a monarchy 
beginning with an election, and liable to end in assassination, 
whenever the ruler grew unpopular, was not without its safe- 
guards: but, as is always the case with such governments, 
Rome went steadily from bad to worse. The Tarquins 
seemed, in spite of elections, to be quietly settling themselves 
upon the throne, when the vicious conduct of one of them led 

*George llawlinson's Early Civilization, page 128. 



FREE LANDS OF ROME. 75 

to the abolition of royalty, and the banishment of the family. 
It is probable that too much importance has been given in 
history to the rape of Lucretia, as that was merely the last 
straw that broke the camel's back. The theory on which the 
Roman colony was founded was the equal rights of all its 
citizens. When provinces were conquered, the lands were to 
be divided, and, first, a portion given to those who had none, 
as it was assumed that each citizen must have within his own 
possession the means of subsistence. The remainder of the 
land acquired was to be equally divided among all the citi- 
zens. Proper steps were not taken to permanently secure 
such a distribution, and as everything was subject to the com- 
mercial test, it was not long before a landed and moneyed 
aristocracy was built up. Ferguson, in his Roman Republic, 
informs us that under the early monarchy the people were 
divided into patricians and plebeians. It was intended that the 
official positions and dignities should only be conferred on the 
patricians, and the patricians were, in fact, those who had a 
certain amount of property. We therefore need not be at all 
surprised when the above accomplished historian informs us, 
that on the overthrow of the monarchy the government of 
Rome was entirely aristocratic. The patricians had absorbed 
the greater portion of the land and other wealth. They had 
reduced many of the citizens to peonage through debt. They 
held all the offices, and there was no distinction in the legis- 
lative, executive and judicial functions. They levied and 
expended taxes, commanded armies, and officered them by 
virtue of their position and wealth. 

It may well be supposed that the expulsion of the Tarquins 
was an easy task, compared with that of building a free republic 
on such a foundation. The Romans, however, were not destitute 
of courage and vigor, and their first effort was to separate the 
functions of government, and create offices to be filled by the 
people. They sent commissioners to Greece to study the laws 
adopted there; in fact, Rome borrowed her religion and law 



76 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

largely from Greece. The patricians were, of course, alarmed 
at all these proceedings. They did not hesitate to denounce 
them as mere agrarian violence. They were, indeed, too 
prudent to call in question the power of the people, as the 
highest authority in the state, but they did their best to foment 
jealousies among their opponents. They adroitly hired 
claqueers to hoot and deride the popular champions, and finally 
the senate, on the pretext that the state was menaced by 
enemies from without and turbulence withiu, appointed a 
dictator. Having consolidated this power sufficiently, as they 
thought, the patricians again commenced oppressing the poorer 
citizens, reducing many of them to slavery under the pretext 
that they were in debt to their patrons. They continued their 
tyrannical practices until the mass of the laboring people left 
the capital and camped on the sacred hill. For months this 
continued, and business may be said to have been suspended. 
It was a very famous strike. The patricians vainly invited 
them to return to their homes and their labor, but they replied 
that free men own no country where they are not permitted to 
enjoy their freedom. While the patricians had retainers suffi- 
cient to guard the approaches to fortified Rome, they suffered 
for want of that which the people alone could produce. This 
led to a compromise. The populace created the Tribunes of 
the people. The patricians could neither vote for, nor be 
elected to this office. A safer plan would have been to abolish 
the distinction of patrician and plebeian, and change the senate 
into a purely elective assembly. The conservative element is 
always a strong one in society. Even the exclusive rights of 
the patricians were not without supporters among the lower 
orders. The people, instead of reducing the aristocratic 
powers to a republican basis, created a government machinery 
of their own. The two existed together, conflicting, of course, 
whenever cither party felt strong enough. As the populace 
always Mere in majority, the senate and patricians worked 
adroitly in an underhanded way, and as they possessed wealth, 



THE AGRAKIAN LAW. 77 

the real sinew of power, were still able for a time to maintain 
their privileges and authority. The next step of the people 
was what has been styled the agrarian law, and was simply a 
proposition to redistribute the lands among the citizens. A 
wealthy citizen, Sp. Cassius, was one of the champions of the 
people in this demand, and to evidence his sincerity divided a 
large portion of his surplus lands among the indigent citizens. 
Against him all the venom of the patrician order turned. 
He unfortunately held to some opinions, one as to the intro- 
duction of aliens, that were not popular. Taking advantage 
of this and the extreme jealousy of the people against any one 
who was supposed to be aiming at royal authority, this popular 
leader was denounced as a dangerous demagogue aiming to 
subvert the power of the government, and was destroyed by 
the hatred of patricians and the jealousies of the populace. 

The patricians met the demand for a fair distribution of 
the lands of the republic by specious arguments. They urged 
that these lands were originally the property of none of them, 
but were derived from conquest ; that if they had been equit- 
ably divided at first, and a provision made that they should be, 
through all time, the property of all the people, it would have 
been all right. That, however, had not been done. Law 
and custom had permitted them to drift into the hands of the 
present owners, who had vested rights in them, and that all 
these leveling measures could not now be applied without the 
subversion of all government, and all rights of property. 
The Tribunes and the people, however, succeeded in sending 
a commission to Greece to procure a code of law suitable for a 
free people. These commissioners first returned with a table 
of ten laws. To gain time, the patricians used their arts on 
the commissioners, and the latter, who had usurped a great 
many powers never intended to be delegated to them, en- 
deavored to perpetuate their authority, on the pretext that 
they had not completed this work. Finally, however, twelve 
tables of Roman law were adopted. These laws involved 



78 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

assignments of land on a fair prescription for two years, a 
jury system for trials and other propositions for the popular 
welfare. The barriers that had shut the people from the 
highest offices were swept away. Ultimately, the law fixed 
the amount of land that any citizen should be permitted to 
own. The theory was that the cultivator, under the state, 
should, for the time, own and control the land he cultivated. 
Pliny informs us that Curius Dentatus looked upon the 
Roman as a pernicious citizen, who was not content with 
seven acres, and the Roman law restricted each holder, at one 
time, to that amount. The power of the patrician order, 
although reduced, Avas not altogether broken. Restrictions 
had been placed upon the practice of enslaving for debt. 
Rome, however, was full of alien slaves, and persons born in 
slavery. The ranks of slavery were increased from con- 
demned criminals. It is needless to say that labor can never 
be independent and honorable under such circumstances. 

Rome grew in power and wealth. The title, Roman citi- 
zen, became, of itself, a sort of aristocracy. It was not con- 
fined to the natives of the republic, but was conferred upon 
individuals inhabiting other cities or provinces. Since the 
animosities of patrician and plebeian had been partly extin- 
guished by the division of power and honor between them, 
more than two hundred years elapsed before new conditions 
menaced the rights of the people. The patricians had been 
compelled to open the channels to the highest offices to those 
eminent among the plebeians. The Roman senate, although 
it was originally aristocratic, contained many of the most 
eminent Roman citizens of all orders, and, in spite of its 
faults, maintained a character for magnanimity and greatness 
longer than any similar body known among men. The 
changes in the Roman condition gradually undermined the 
principles of the government. A career of conquest furnished 
an ample field for the active and ambitious Roman citizens 
of every grade. The offices of state and the command of the 



TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 79 

armies now became lucrative as well as honorable. Citizens 
contended for offices in the state as the road to wealth -pro- 
ducing appointments abroad, and brought back from the 
positions they thus obtained a profusion of ill-acquired 
wealth, to corrupt the people, and make themselves leaders 
of factions. The comparative seclusion of the equestrian 
order, from political positions, turned them into traders, 
usurers, government contractors, farmers of revenue ; and 
they thus in turn absorbed the lands and capital, and con- 
trolled the labor. The citizens abandoned agricultural 
pursuits, and flocked to the capital, where the gratuitous 
distribution of corn, and the splendid shows amused and 
gratified them. The exercise of their powers, as members of 
the popular assemblies, gave them a voice in controlling the 
aifairs of the world, and an opportunity of selling their suf- 
frage in the markets, which gradually debauched them. Once 
more the small farms were swallowed up by the large ones 
cultivated by slaves. Wealth was permitted to have undue 
power. In point of fact, the republic was hastening to a sure 
decay. 

At this period a fresh attempt was made to return to the 
first principles of the republic. The republic had lasted for 
three hundred and seventy-five years. A popular leader 
arose, Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected Tribune. He saw 
and deprecated the decline of virtue and real prosperity. In 
the early days of the republic the earth was tilled by freed- 
men, and everywhere there reigned a sound prosperity. 
The aristocracy, as Livy informs us, had invaded the little 
homesteads which had given place to vast estates cultivated 
by slaves. That writer, deploring the condition of the Roman 
country, said, "Vast numbers of freedmen used to live in 
these regions, which now remain a nursery for scarce a hand- 
ful of soldiers, and are only saved from actual solitude by the 
Roman slave gangs." In one of the oft-quoted speeches of 
Gracchus, he is reported as saying : " The wild beasts of Italy 



80 ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

have their lairs to which they can retreat, the brave men who 
shed their blood in her cause have nothing left but light and 
the air they breathe ; without house, without any fixed abode, 
they wander from place to place with their wives and children. 
They fight and die to advance the wealth and luxury of the 
great. They are called masters of the world, and have not a 
foot of ground in their possession." I f 

He proposed to restore or enforce the agrarian or Licinian 
law, which had fallen into neglect. He inveighed against the 
practice of employing slaves, and demanded that the laws 
should be enforced to prevent it. He also proposed limiting 
estates, as under the original Licinian law, but to reconcile the 
nobles and rich land owners, proposed that the state should 
pay them an appraised value for their relinquishment. He 
also insisted on a law to prevent, hereafter, all commerce 
in land, or its accumulation in large estates. He considered 
it reasonable that what was public should be applied to public 
uses. The project of Tiberius Gracchus was strenuously 
opposed by the senate and the nobles. Finding that the 
people were determined on having such laws, they secured 
one of the Tribunes, who interposed his negative, which 
stopped further proceedings. Indignant at the course pur- 
sued by the patricians, Gracchus now modified his proposition 
by striking out the provisions for indemnifying those who 
had accumulated great estates, for the surplus thus to be 
taken from them to distribute to the people. He further 
announced several other propositions, among them, one to 
reduce the powers of the senate. His proposed laws were dis- 
cussed in all the provinces of Italy, the people generally being 
on his side, and the nobles and their partisans on the other. 
After a desperate struggle, the laws he proposed were adopted 
by the vote of the citizens, the patricians, however, claiming 
that it could not be constitutionally done after one of the Tri- 
bunes had interposed his negative. The senate refused to 
take the necessary steps to carry it out, and once more pro- 



TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 81 

claimed a dictator. In the midst of great disorder, a mob, or 
band of the clients and attaches of the senators and nobles, 
headed by them, broke into the assembly of the people ; Ti- 
berius Gracchus and three hundred of his followers were 
slain. Some of the more active of his partisans were after- 
wards condemned and outlawed. Thus, in blood, did the 
nobles destroy the popiilar assemblies. The senate, with 
affected moderation, professed to execute the laws just adopted, 
and even appointed the necessary commissioners, but this was 
merely to avert another storm. The Gracchi fell one hundred 
years before the date of the Christian era, and, although ninety- 
four years of the nominal republic elapsed before Octavius, 
as Augustus Caesar, became emperor, the republic had, on 
the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, received its death blow. 
The great events and foreign conquests that filled that period, 
diverted public attention from more vital questions. Never 
again did there come to the Roman people a leader who was 
able to preserve the principles of the republic. It was not 
when the Caesars ascended the throne that the republic per- 
ished. All that was vital in it had previously passed away. 
It was merely a question between one great tyrant and a 
thousand small tyrants. It is not the first time a people have 
taken refuge in a despotism to escape an oligarchy. Nor was 
the downfall of the magnificent, but guilty empire, surprising. 
The Roman citizens had ceased to have much interest in.Rome, 
and why should they stain the soil with their blood to bolster 
a tyrant? The bands of Huns, and Goths and Sclavs, many 
of whose people had been dragged to Rome, and " butchered, 
to make a Roman holiday/' came, in their own good time, 
to give the tyrants a new lesson in the gladiatorial combat. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONDITION OP LABOE AND LAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

Aryan emigration to Europe — Allodial title the distinction for freemen — ■ 
The village council the ancient foundation of government — Division of 
conquered lands — Women's property rights invaded — The feudal system 
erected on breach of public trust — Primogeniture — Freemen reduced to 
villeinage — Game laws for the pleasure of aristocrats — Social rights 
invaded — Marriages between commoners and nobles declared unlawful — 
Laws of escheat — The civil list — The " Younger Son" — Banditti — Parlia- 
ments represent landowners — Guilds and trades societies — Free cities and 
towns — Gunpowder as a democratic element — Titles the insignia of 
luxurious roga bondage. 

For some time before the Christian era, and for three or four 
hundred years thereafter, many hordes or tribes of Asiatics 
invaded Europe. These have been variously named Goths, 
Huns, Vandals, Suevi, Alani. Some of these emigrants had 
been originally from the valleys around the Himalayan moun- 
tains and were driven by superabundant population to emi- 
grate. After wandering through the steppes of Central Asia 
and acquiring the vigor, self denial and warlike spirit incident 
to nomadic tribes, they finally consolidated under chosen lead- 
ers and precipitated themselves on Europe. It has been one 
of the proudest boasts of ethnological science, to trace the 
present great nations of Europe to their Indian ancestry. The 
Aryans could be traced not only by their language but by 
their forms of society and ideas of inheritance and personal 
rights. "There was a time," says Professor Max Miiller, 
in his "Languages of the Seat of War," page 30, "when 
the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs, the 
Greeks, Italians, Persians and Hindoos were living together 
82 



ALLODIAL TITLE. 83 

beneath the same roof, separate from the Semetic or Turanian 
races." 

It is important to trace the social ideas and principles 
regarding the rights of property these people brought with 
them to Europe and the changes that were wrought during 
the conquering and Middle Ages. The highest authorities 
generally agree, that originally, the common possession of land 
characterised all the Aryan races.* The indications are, that 
allodial land was everywhere the distinctive privilege of free- 
men. By allodial land is meant, land equally held under 
family rights, this tenure giving no power to the occupants to 
reduce or abridge the rights in it of all the family that might 
come after them. It was, therefore, founded on equal laws of 
inheritance. 

Among the earlier arrivals of the great swarm we refer to, 
and prior to the Christian era, w T e read of the Germans. From 
Caesar, Strabo and other Roman authorities, we learn that 
these Germans were scattered in a number of independent 
tribes. They elected their kings and other rulers from par- 
ticular families. The lands were allotted to all the citizens 
every two years. 

The ancient foundation of government for all the branches 
of these people w T as the village community. The " Village 
Council" was the voice of law for all the branches of the 
Aryan race.f It has been suggested that this council has 
furnished the model for all the parliamentary bodies of the 
world. 

The conquering hordes from Asia first lodged in Northern 
Europe, driving before them or subduing the thinly settled 
tribes east of the Rhine and north of the 37th degree of 
latitude, that being the practical boundary of the Roman 
empire. Having acquired sufficient strength, these invaders 
precipitated themselves upon the older governments on the 
Mediterranean. 

* Maine's History of Institutions, page 340, f Ibid., page 388. 



84 MIDDLE AGES. 

When these warlike races overran the Roman Empire and. 
captured her colonies, they were in the habit of making a 
division of land between themselves and the people they 
conquered. The Germans and Goths took one-half, leaving 
the remainder to former inhabitants, while the Burgundians 
and Visigoths took two-thirds.* The Vandals in Africa 
appropriated all the best lands. f 

The beginnings of these new nations show us a camp rather 
than a civil government, and military leaders rather than civil 
rulers. It was a combination of sturdy freemen, however. 
The old ideas struggled resolutely and for ages, against the 
changes and innovations of the ambitious and selfish. When 
the country was divided between the conquered and the con- 
querors, military forces could not disband. Especially had 
those on the Roman frontiers to maintain their martial 
character. The military leaders were elective and had little 
power save in time of war, and at first no more land than 
their neighbors. They cultivated their own land. Each 
soldier had to serve so many days in a year, usually not to 
exceed forty. The town assemblage was the government, and 
all debated questions of right or claim were referred to it. 
In this way the allodial title long struggled against the 
encroachments of the feudal system. The original laws and 
customs of these people were to divide their inheritance equally 
among all children.;}; The Franks did not permit the land 
obtained by conquest to be divided among females, as they 
desired to secure military service from all holders. Even 
among this tribe, lands secured by purchase passed by law to 
all the family alike, males and females.§ The Visigoths, and 
other of these nations or tribes, permitted conquered lands to be 
fairly divided by inheritance among all without regard to sex. 

Whether this idea of setting aside woman's rights was the 

* Ilallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., page 149. f Ibid. 

X Ibid., pa^e 151. \ Ibid., page 150. 



THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 85 

product of niere violence or was copied from some of the 
systems these Indo-Europeans encountered, is not so material 
as the fact that it soon led to other innovations. 

The first five hundred years of war and conquest were 
not more disastrous to the Roman Empire than to the 
liberties of the new nations thus peopling the north of Europe. 
The seeds of much political mischief were sown, and an aris- 
tocracy, the worst the world ever beheld, founded. The duty 
of defending the country, they held, gave the military leaders 
the right to summon each holder of land to the field. The 
wars became burdensome and prolonged and could not have 
been continued but for plunder, which had a demoralizing 
effect not only on the people themselves but on their social and 
political system. Public brigandage was common. Chiefs 
hired or bribed their vassals with presents obtained by war. 
Hopes of plunder often congregated armed bands of adventur- 
ers about the warlike leaders. These, of course, soon became 
formidable and dangerous to the peaceful fathers of the Village 
Council. Military service exacted for public defense soon 
grew into a duty claimed by the chief, and thus by insidious 
degrees the foundations of the feudal system were laid. The 
term " Feudalism," Mr. Bell says, is but another name for 
aristocracy. It was utterly at variance with every social 
doctrine of the Aryan race. 

The war chiefs did not at once rise to full aristocratic 
power or privilege. Nobility was not known among the 
Franks until long after the overthrow of the Roman Empire.* 

A lord and his vassals were originally a captain and his 
men. It is noteworthy that these Teutonic folk seem to have 
acquired some of the worst faults of the Roman Empire they 
overthrew. The relations of a feudal chief and his vassals 
closely resemble, and are said to have been copied after those 
of a Roman patron and clients. It is also significant that 

* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., page 159. 



86 MIDDLE AGES. 

many of the titles that originated and grew up in this period, 
are from Latin words. Thus, duke, from the Latin duces, 
" leader." Counts, from comer (companions of the prince). 
Marquis, from marcha, " boundary." Earl, on the other 
hand, is from the Scandinavian, but originally signified elder, 
like the Arabic Sheik. The Teutonic races, in their early 
history, detested aristocracy, and yet they, through war, 
created the germs of military aristocracy. To them a landed 
aristocracy was also abhorrent, and it required ages of intrigue 
and violence before these military leaders succeeded in estab- 
lishing it. Even when the Saxons conquered England, in 
the fourth century, and drove the Celtic population into Wales 
and the North of Scotland, gavelkind, or land inheritance 
by all the members of the family, was their law and custom. 
Slavery was originally repugnant to the ideas of these people, 
and, although they took captives in war, they had not created 
a fixed servile class. Imitating the Romans, they now began to 
make one. At first the duties of the vassals were not bur- 
densome. They were bound to serve their country in war, 
and had a personal interest in rendering such service. The 
land upon which the yeoman gave this military service was 
his home, and he had an interest in its defence, just as every 
man had an interest. 

At that period the lord had to cultivate his own land. 
Military power, however, is never slow in taking care of per- 
sonal interests, and in a very short time the lord enriched 
himself by taking his retainers on predatory expeditions, 
chiefly for his own benefit. For military service due, commu- 
tation began to be accepted, and whether there was war or 
not, this gradually grew into rent, and in the same way came 
to be a perquisite of the lord of the manor. Exactions thus 
begun, of course, increased, as avarice inspired the chieftain 
who collected it. In the course of a few centuries, the tenants 
of an estate began to be considered as a species of slaves. 
Slaves, to a certain extent, those who pay rent to a great 



PRIMOGENITURE. 87 

proprietor, always will be. On the continent they were 
styled retainers, or serfs ; in England, villeins. They were, 
in the course of time, transferred as chattels with the estate. 

It is a crime in a father to desire that his son shall inherit 
a public trust. In empires and kingdoms it has been so 
common as to be almost universal that a king's son succeeded 
him. This custom followed no natural law, and existed only 
because a leader, at first of popular acceptance, had been able 
to fortify his position so as to render him independent of 
popular will. The frequent struggles incident to the crown- 
ing of new kings, attest the strength of the popular protest 
against it. This continuance of a family in power, comes, in 
most cases, from causes equally dangerous to the public in- 
terests. No large kingdom or royalty can be formed without 
a great and potent machinery. Generals, ministers, depu- 
ties, ambassadors, judges, captains and so on, down to the 
most petty officials and scavengers of the royal household, 
are all concerned in the succession. Whoever is king, each 
of these must be " Vicar of Bray." We thus see that a 
powerful combination has been created, which, on the death 
of the real or nominal head, wants things to go on just 
as they are, and who naturally take the king's son and 
continue him in order that they may keep in office. Revolu- 
tions, or elections that might rotate them out are not to be 
thought of. In this way privileged classes are created, hoary 
corruptions perpetuated, tyrannies cemented, human equality 
blotted out, and the public interests made the football of every 
intriguing and ambitious adventurer. 

If kingly succession is fatal to popular liberty, an aristoc- 
racy by inheritance is a still more fearful scourge. Grafted 
on feudalism, the law of primogeniture became the insidious 
curse of European society, stepping across the threshold of 
home, and over the cradle of childhood, to lay the foundation 
for a lordly, privileged class. The law by which property 
descended through the oldest son did not exist among the 



88 MIDDLE AGES. 

Aryan races on their first establishment in the Roman em- 
pire.* Not only among the ancient Germans, but among the 
Hindoos, from whom they sprang, the endowment of the 
family could not be parted with, except by the consent of all 
its members. The idea of primogeniture was certainly not 
obtained from the Romans.f Neither could it be derived 
from Christian teachings. It was first introduced by the 
great lords, when they made grants of land to knights, for 
the performance of knight service, one person, or head, being 
thus created to represent and pay the service, all his brethren 
becoming retainers. Such was the original custom, but it led 
to the concentration of power in the first born as the head of 
the estate. It took some time, and a good deal of fraud, 
chicanery and violence to fasten on these independent warriors 
the yoke of masters. 

This unjust discrimination was, as has been shown, in 
violation of the fundamental customs and laws of the people 
over whom it was thrust, and was brought about by breach 
of public trust. John Adams said that, " Since the promul- 
gation of Christianity the two greatest systems of tyranny are 
the canon and feudal law." J He added a few pages late? : 
"The feudal system was inconsistent with liberty and the 
rights of mankind." Rousseau styles the feudal system, " The 
most iniquitous and abased form of government which shame- 
fully degraded human nature," and Lord Karnes in "Antiqui- 
ties," says : " A constitution so contradictory could never be 
brought about but by foreign conquest or domestic usurpation." 
While referring to this phase in the history of English titles, 
and to primogeniture, Adam Smith says : " While land is 
considered as the means only of subsistence and enjoyment, 
the natural law of succession divides it among all the children 
of the family. When land was considered as the means not 

* Systems of Land Tenures in Vaiious Countries, page 94. 
f Maine's History of Institutions, page 198. 
X Works of John Adams, vol. iii., page 449. 



FEUDAL DEGRADATION. 89 

only of subsistence, but of power and protection, it was thought 
better that it should descend undivided to one." That is a 
very ingenious attempt to explain the circumstance by which 
a few great families absorbed nearly all the land in the coun- 
try. One would think in reading it that it had been a matter 
of general acquiescence. Sir Henry Sumner Maine says that 
" the great development of primogeniture was in the early part 
of the Middle Ages." * 

The term " Middle Ages," I suppose, when it is used with 
any definite meaning, refers to that portion of European his- 
tory beginning at the time of the final overthrow of the Roman 
or Western Empire, and drawing to a close with the intro- 
duction of constitutional governments in Western and Northern 
Europe. In Hallam's History on the subject, he places it 
between the fifth and fifteenth centuries of the Christian era. 
In styling it the " Dark Ages " is meant the barbarous or 
semi-barbarous ages. 

When the Aryan races in their great waves of emigration 
entered Europe, they brought with them the knowledge and 
use of iron, horses, chariots, cattle, and had made considerable 
progress in agriculture. It has even been alleged that some 
of these nations had letters. When the Franks invaded Gaul 
they found considerable wealth and semi-barbaric splendor. f 
The wretched squalor and poverty witnessed in the Middle 
Ages were the fruits of the avarice, tyranny and misgovern- 
ment of feudalism. The crimes and degradation of Rome not 
only paved the way for its own ruin but imparted the virus 
of its iniquity into the nerves and fresher blood of the Teutonic 
race. From the fifth to the tenth century of the Christian 
era there was throughout the greater portion of Europe a 
decline in all that constitutes national greatness. After the 
fall of the Roman Empire and the abandonment of Great 
Britain by its armies, the warlike Picts and Scots, hemmed up 

* Maine's History of Institutions, page 205. f Ibid., page 350. 



90 . MIDDLE AGES. 

by the Romans in the North of Scotland, invaded the land 
now occupied by the Britons. The latter employed Danish 
and Saxon navigators, chiefly from the Danish peninsula, to 
aid them, and finally the Britons were overrun and conquered 
by these Anglo-Saxons. They carried with them ideas of 
allodial title, folcland and tanistry, but this primitive condi- 
tion had already become imbued with the worst vices of the 
systems they found in Europe, and a conflict between indi- 
vidual rights and aristocracy began. 

For several hundred years England was torn by wars and 
dissensions. The eight kings were supplemented by many 
military leaders, each of whom was a king or a robber as far 
as he had the power. They were largely governed by customs. 
Some little of the Roman law remained, but without any 
ruler potent enough to administer it. The local chiefs, Tanists 
or Thanes, were elective, but the chieftains usually managed 
to keep the succession in their own family. The rights of the 
ancient Britons were trampled upon by the Anglo-Saxon 
conquerors. The Anglo-Saxon people found it difficult to 
defend their rights against their own military chiefs. Allodial 
titles and folcland still existed, but largely burdened by feudal 
duty. The folcmote, or councils of the people, were still a 
cherished Anglo-Saxon institution, but were steadily being 
undermined by the exactions of the Thanes, Earls and other 
titled leaders. The great body of the people comprised two 
classes : freemen who held land subject to duty of various 
kinds, and slaves who had nothing. The latter could not be 
sold out of the county where they lived, and had some few 
privileges, in fact, they were about as well off as the poor free- 
men. The slaves were the descendants of slaves from the 
Roman period, captives in war, and people condemned to. 
slavery for crime. When England was finally united in one 
kingdom under Egbert, in the ninth century, it was not a 
closely consolidated government. The nobles were still all 
powerful, and between them and the king there was continual 



HEREDITARY NOBILITY. 91 

dissension. Despotic and selfish though the kings were, their 
power was a check to some extent on the aristocracy, but was 
unable to strip them of their ill-gotten wealth and authority. 
Many laws and codes of law are referred to, but complete 
codes did not exist. The old customs of the people, which yet 
struggled for existence, were rarely written laws, the latter 
were the new and supplemental acts of various reigns. The 
old council of the people, folcmote, had been considerably 
abridged by the witenagemote, or supreme council, out of 
which parliament finally grew. The latter was essentially an 
aristocratic body. Whenever the kings grew sufficiently 
powerful they struggled to abridge the powers of this assem- 
bly. Until the time of Alfred, the nobility had not com- 
pletely succeeded in becoming hereditary. After his reign 
they were so, and a son might inherit his " father's county." 
The Anglo-Saxon law at various times decreed "that no man 
should continue without a lord." Laws were also enacted 
to prevent the marriage of the aristocratic orders with the 
common people, and the children of a marriage between a 
noble and ignoble person were held to be illegitimate. The 
freemen who still held their lands under tribute of military 
service were compelled to accept vassalage under some noble 
or lose their lands. In addition to the forty days' service, or 
its equivalent, to a knight, all manner of impositions were 
continually added. They had to contribute to purchase a 
knight's right for the earl's son, to contribute to a dower for his 
daughter, and, indeed, there was no limit to the rapacity of 
these aristocrats. The nobles continually warred on what was 
left of the allodial title. It has been customary to charge the 
worst evils of the feudal system on the Norman conquest. 
Before that period arrived the agrarian constitutions and 
village rights of ancient times had been largely swept away. 
Gradually, the chiefs undermined independent holders, the 
community became the " Manor," the greater free holders 
tenants, and the small holders were reduced to the positions 



92 MIDDLE AGES. 

of villeins, laborers or slaves. Maine says that villeinage is 
a tenure rendering uncertain and unlimited services, "where it 
cannot be known at eventide what hath to be done on the 
morrow." * Under these circumstances, it took but a few 
hundred years to reduce more than half of the people to abject 
slavery. Not only was their substance taken by the aristo- 
crats who thus fattened on them, but every insult and con- 
tumely was heaped upon them, and even the sacredness of the 
rights of husband and wife were invaded. 

It has often been wondered at that, in a single battle and almost 
without a struggle, England was placed at the feet of the Nor- 
man conquerors. It was indeed a calamity to the Saxon aris- 
tocracy, but why should the people of England fight for such 
a government as they possessed ? JEsop furnishes the fable 
of the two asses, the most asinine of which urged the other 
to flee on the approach of an invading enemy. To these 
adjurations the other ass asked, " Will this invader work us 
harder, feed us more poorly or beat us more cruelly than our 
present masters do?" "I suppose not," was the reply. 
"Very well," said the other, "you may run if you please, but 
I am going to stay, it cannot be much worse." With the con- 
quest came a supposed change in the title to lands in England. 
King William claimed the land as his by right of conquest, — 
a conquest, moreover, made as against all the parties living 
on it. In point of fact, a systematic spoliation of the great 
Saxon nobility began with the reign of William the Norman, 
and continued to its close. f Although the Saxon leaders had 
absorbed the greater portion of the land, theoretically or prac- 
tically, some of it was still technically styled " commons," or 
lands over which the power of the lord was not absolute, or 
on which a figment of the people's title rested. This nominal 
public or people's land, the conqueror annexed as crown lands. 

ply Law and Custom, page 334. 
jllallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., page 98. 



MONOPOLY OF GAME. 93 

We look through that chequered and darkened history in vain 
to find any attempt to restore to the people what had been 
taken by the Saxon aristocracy. A new nobility was created, 
consisting of shoots of royalty, favorites and conquerors. 
Most of the oldest and proudest English aristocratic families 
date from that period. In addition it is said, that for one hun- 
dred years from the conquest no native Englishmen held office 
in the Church or State.* Some of the Saxon nobles fled and 
took refuge in Constantinople. A good deal of sympathy has 
been expended on them in history, but between the Saxon 
aristocratic robbers of the people and the Norman conquerors 
the difference was not great. The kings, however, had a 
stronger hand. 

As the Saxon aristocracy had grown into wealth, power and 
luxury, they refused to the common people the right to kill the 
wild game, though it fed on the crops raised in the fields of 
the serf or villein. Even the monopoly of keeping and rais- 
ing pigeons was assumed by them. These laAvs grew more 
stringent under the Normans. The knights, earls and dukes 
rode about the country with hawk and hound, and no peasant 
could take or kill the wild beasts of nature. At one time the 
killing of a stag or boar by a peasant was punished with 
death. f Nothing could exhibit better the desperate extremity 
to which they had reduced the laboring people. This gross 
usurpation continues to the present day. Poor men have been 
transported beyond the seas for killing a hare. Lands that 
might have furnished a living for yeomen have been turned 
into deer parks and preserves, merely for the luxurious amuse- 
ment of the rich and aristocratic. 

The way these kings sometimes procured artisans is worthy 
of note. Edward III. announced to his sheriffs that he 
" had created William, of Walsingham, his commissioner to 
collect as many painters as might be required to finish St. 

*Hallarn's Middle Ages, vol. L, page 97. f Ibid., vol. ii., page 503. 



94 MIDDLE AGES. 

Stephen's Chapel, to be at the king's wages, but he is author- 
ized to seize and imprison all who refuse to work." * 

Such were the foundations of the system, Saxon and Nor- 
man, under which an aristocracy reduced the laboring people 
of England to poverty, hardship and servitude. The Norman 
kings created fresh nobles as soon as escheats, confiscations or 
other causes threw property in their hauds. Under the Saxons 
an escheat for failure to perform military duty, or for treason 
or other offense, could only extend for a certain period, or 
during the lives of the offenders, as the idea still survived, to 
some extent, that each generation had certain rights in the 
land. The Normans, however, made escheats and confisca- 
tions perpetual. It is true, that this to a great extent was 
among the nobles, and the change from one aristocrat to 
another might be of little consequence to the real cultivator 
of the soil. This was considered a great grievance among the 
nobility; hence we find as constitutional governments began 
to be formed, there was a struggle to prevent the perpetual 
escheatment for offenses. One amusing circumstance connected 
witli it is the fact that this idea has crept into the Constitution 
of the United States, and it is held, that perpetual escheat or 
attainder shall not be inflicted. Lands, with us, are a mere 
chattel. There is no assertion anywhere of the rights of the 
next generation in them, independent of the will of the holder. 
We have no law of entail. If we had laws which provided 
that the lands held should in each succeeding generation be 
fairly divided between all the surviving members of each 
family, this provision against escheat and attainder would have 
some point. 

Growing out of the laws of primogeniture and the feudal 
system, there came the law of entail. Its purpose is very 
evident. It grew up in the fourteenth and fifteenth centu- 
ries. The law of entail, it will be observed, does not make 

*IIallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., page 351. 



LAW OF ENTAIL. 95 

the land a chattel. A holding under it is not a fee simple title. 
It is a life interest, which cannot be alienated from his family 
by the holder , or subject even to his debts after his death. 
Had the entail been for the family, and for every family, 
divisible among all its descendants in each generation, it would 
have resembled, to some extent, the system these despotic 
aristocrats had overthrown. The law of entail was really a 
precautionary measure of the nobles against the growing power 
of the cities. A new class of rich bourgeois was rising, and 
it was not desirable that they should own land. This law of 
entail was also a reactionary struggle against the doctrine of 
land sovereignty, or " eminent domain. 77 By the latter doc- 
trine, which, in a different shape, has crept into our land 
system, the monarch claimed sovereign rights in the land. 
Guizot holds that it is the amalgamation of sovereignty with 
property that constitutes feudalism. This feudal power might 
be in the nobles or in the king. When primogeniture and 
the law of entail were fastened on the feudal system, they 
irrevocably fixed an aristocracy in a certain line. The folly, 
extravagance or wickedness of one generation, could not for- 
feit the perpetual lien that the head of a certain house had 
upon the industry and toil of the people of a community. To 
make the matter worse, the policy of intermarrying the noble 
class only with each other, tended further to consolidate this 
power, and to create an interest so potent and well intrenched 
as to defy opposition. 

The Norman kings having disposed of all the public domain 
to relatives, or favorites, and there being thus no rent for 
public expenditures, proceeded to tax the producing classes, 
of course, for an additional income to support the government. 
Not content with moderate and economical government ex- 
penditure, hosts of sinecures were from time to time created. 
Indeed, this soon became a necessity of the aristocracy. After 
the adoption of the law of primogeniture, the younger sons of 
nobles became a constantly increasing and dangerous body. 



96 MIDDLE AGES. 

They were the squires and pet men-at-arms, and much of the 
aristocratic brigandage of the Middle Ages was due to the 
necessities of this class. Bell, in his history of feudalism, 
says, that at one time, in France, upwards of one hundred 
thousand of these armed men were roaming about. They 
w r ere termed in that country "skinners alive." The younger 
sons could either sink into villeinage, or be soldiers or ban- 
dits. As brigandage fell under the ban of progressing civili- 
zation, official positions had to be created for those nearly 
connected with the nobles. Offices were not only created for 
them, but for the nobles themselves. Some lord or offshoot 
of nobility or royalty would have an annual salary from the 
public purse, as "keeper" of some "seal," or other nominal 
office. To meet the extravagance of the aristocratic class, 
immense civil lists of persons, really pensioners on the public 
bounty, w r ere created, and this burden steadily enlarged from 
time to time. It is probable that a very few of these gifts 
and gratuities of government may have been given for meri- 
torious public services, and, in such cases there might have 
been some small excuse for them, if the money had not been 
drawn from the revenues of a burdened and overworked 
people. During the first five hundred years of feudalism in 
England, the great nobles resolutely resisted the imposition of 
taxes upon themselves by the king. Not content with draw- 
ing great revenues from the natural resources of the country, 
they refused to bear their share of the public burdens. 

In the last few hundred years armies were raised, and im- 
mense public debts incurred to obtain and hold colonies. As 
was once eloquently said, these were paddocks into which were 
turned the lean and decayed members of the aristocracy. 
The colonial expense was maintained from the public purse, 
and the profits so arranged that they went into the pockets of 
the privileged few. It was boasted that the country was very 
rich. The laboring classes could not be said to be a great deal 
better off. Their food, in spite of artificial adjuncts, was really 



TRADES AND GUILDS. 97 

neither so good nor so wholesome. Their holidays and hours 
of leisure were reduced. The mode of life grew so artificial f 
that it was difficult to manage expenses, and paupers became 
more common. There was a constant increase of the weak 
and helpless class. It is a common thing to boast of the 
wealth and increasing property of a nation, but a nation 
should never be considered as prosperous or increasing in real 
wealth unless the improvement is with the laboring and pro- 
ducing classes. The wealth that increases the number of 
idlers to live on the producers is not beneficent, but is merely 
the machinery for greater oppression. 

It must not be supposed that the growth of this system was 
not resisted. The laboring classes, although more numerous, 
are always at a disadvantage when coping with an aristocracy, 
which, besides other accumulated wealth and power, holds 
the lauds from which men have to get bread for their fam- 
ilies. Secret societies flourished. Trades took shelter under 
organizations or guilds. Each trade had its representatives, 
and they grew into political power. These, at least, were 
elective. The lower clergy generally encouraged and aided 
them. As the landed proprietors usurped judicial functions, 
secret tribunals were created to punish notorious offenders. 
In a few vigorous commuuities, such as Kent, the system of 
peonage or villeinage was resisted. 

Among the powers of the Crown assumed by the con- 
queror and many of his successors was the power to make 
laws. The Saxons had relegated all important questions to a 
general council of notables. 

The nobles and country gentlemen, owners of land, had a 
voice in these old assemblages, and thus, to some extent, this 
question of taxation was a quarrel between the nobles and the 
kings. In this state of affairs, the opinions of the people 
began to be of consequence. Intelligence and general infor- 
mation were increasing. The people in the towns had begun 
to acquire rights to lands, occupied and common to the town, 



98 MIDDLE AGES. 

upon certain payments. Originally, the Saxons were not 
builders of towns or cities, but were, in spirit, an agricultural, 
communal people.* Some of the old towns and cities were 
not abandoned, but the building of English towns and cities 
as independent communities commenced later. Many of 
these first clustered around the religious establishments of 
Christianity. The towns which depended on the crown were 
liable to certain aunual payments. In the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries the town officers were entrusted with the 
collection of its annual payments.f The jurisdiction of the 
town authorities was enlarged. Privileges were granted them, 
and immunities, under Richard I., and King John. They 
obtained the right of electing their own officers, and many 
powers of self-government, and the power of forming guilds 
and enacting laws for their control. These guilds were, to 
some extent, trades unions. Each trade or craft had its or- 
ganization and officers. They were armed for defense. The 
municipal privileges of London were recognized in a charter 
by William the Conqueror. The organization of the trades to 
a considerable extent, served to protect them against the abuse 
or brigandage of the nobles. Brigandage was still common. 
Hallam says that all the nobles of England, France and Ger- 
many were robbers.J Highway robbery, from the earliest 
times, was a common crime. Towns were for this reason organ- 
ized and armed, as were the societies or guilds of the trades, 
and slowly grew to be an independent power in the realm. 
Under these circumstances commerce began to be of consider- 
able consequence. When a serf or villein escaped from the 
country and sought the towns, he could not join a guild until 
he had resided a year and a day in the town.§ If a serf or vil- 
lein had not been claimed for more than a year, he could not be 
forced back into servitude by his master. The population of 

* Roger's Work and Wages, page 102. f Ibid. 

X Ilallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., page 506. 
', U< ger's Work and Wages, page 110. 



MAGNA CHARTA. 99 

the towns and cities worked usually at trades, or were engaged 
in business, but it was the custom for many of them to go to 
the country in the harvest season. Even students in colleges, 
and persons connected with, the government and courts, used 
to be sent to aid in the harvest.* When the king dismissed 
his parliament, in the Middle Ages, he sent the nobles to 
their sports and the commons to their harvest, and the long 
vacations of the courts and universities, from July to October, 
was for the purpose of enabling even those engaged in law 
and letters to take part in the harvest. The growth of com- 
merce and the organization of trades and guilds had much to 
do with the increase of civil liberties in England. As the 
towns usually existed in connection with, or close to, religious 
establishments, the bourgeois were, to some extent, under their 
protection, and, also, more under the enlightening influences 
of that period than the laborer in the country. 

The value of the bill of rights, secured at Runnymede, has 
been greatly exaggerated, but very important concessions were 
obtained, and it would be unfair to deny that the interests of 
the people were to some extent considered. Trial by jury 
was not* altogether unknown, or something like it, for King 
Alfred hanged several judges for causing criminals to be exe- 
cuted who had not been convicted by the unanimous vote of 
twelve freemen, as w T e learn from the " Mirror of Justice." 
The Magna Charta guaranteed that no man should be im- 
prisoned without a trial, or convicted until found guilty by a 
jury of his equals. This was a decided improvement on the 
judicial modes then in vogue. 

Sir E. Coke informs us that the Magna Charta was re- 
affirmed thirty-two times. He does not enumerate how often 
it was violated. One of the remarkable concessions of the 
Magna Charta was, that in the courts and tribunals of the realm, 
justice should not be sold. In point of fact, the whole ma- 

*Boger's Work and Wages, page 122. 



100 MIDDLE AGES. 

chinery of jurisprudence was thoroughly and notoriously 
corrupt. 

While the Middle Ages may have closed with the fifteenth 
century, it is a mistake to suppose that the evils entailed on 
the people of Europe terminated at that period. The very 
worst of them exist to-day, and the aristocracy cling to their 
ill-gotten privileges and property with the utmost tenacity. 
In the contest for English liberty, the concessions were wrung 
inch by inch from a tyrannical king and a powerful and cor- 
rupt aristocracy. In the English revolutions the two extremes 
of society, the monarch and the poorest people, were at once 
interested in the overthrow of feudalism. In the reign of 
William the Conqueror, it is supposed that the population of 
England and Wales was about two millions of people. At 
that time all the land was held by about one hundred and 
seventy thousand persons.* The same authority quoted, states 
that at present, when that population has increased to twenty 
millions, only one hundred and fifty thousand persons own 
more than an acre and a half, and that two thousand two 
hundred and fifty persons own nearly half of the enclosed 
portions of England and Wales. Such are the fruits of the 
feudal system to-day. Feudal tenure, in a legal sense, was 
abolished in the reign of Charles II., but, unhappily, the 
rules and customs of the feudal system escaped revision. 
There was no restitution of the lands to the people, and there- 
fore we find the indelible stamp of feudalism on the English 
land system. 

After the conquest of Ireland by the English, besides grants 
to the English and Scotch settlers, there were additional steps 
taken to make the Irish land system like the English. Under 
an Act of the twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth, the Irish lords 
were empowered to surrender their titles to the queen, — these 
titles were at that time nominally held under the laws of gavel- 

* Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 9. 



GERMAN FEUDALISM. 101 

kind, — and having done this, they accepted titles from the 
queen under the English feudal system and laws of primo- 
geniture.* This malevolent law and the procedure under it 
shows the vindictive purpose of the English landed aristocracy. 
A chief, tanist or noble, whose rights were not those of a land- 
holder, thus became one. The common people from being 
freeholders were reduced to the state of tenants and villeins, 
and this perversion of rights had only the authority of an 
English Act of Parliament. 

The difference between the German and English systems are 
due rather to political accidents than other causes. All the 
Teutonic nations that came in contact with Rome adopted the 
feudal system. As has been said, all of them were originally 
communal. In ancient times the German was both a lord and a 
commoner. He was a freeman and a freeholder. The political 
geography of the continent of Europe has changed so often, that 
systems based purely on political power have been broken up. 
The transition from general ownership to individual and un- 
equal possessions was resisted by the sturdy German. While 
her kingly authorities were, according to the theory of her law, 
elective, they soon became, in fact, hereditary. Whether king 
or lord of the manor, the manor and the office were identified 
with the land, and under this modification of the original free- 
man's title by the feudal system, and with the law of primo- 
geniture, the changes gradually came. The process differed as 
to the manner in which it was received ; the steps were the 
same : first, lands belonging to the community, then military 
service for defense, then the change from a tenure on military 
service to private right of the noble to the land, lastly, its 
transmittal by inheritance to one of a certain family. The 
difficulties encountered in some parts of Germany were that 
instead of building up this system on lands that had been 
conquered and divided, it had to be extended to lands held 

* Maine's History of Institutions, page 201. 



102 MIDDLE AGES. 

from remote periods by allodial freeholders. The system 
began, however, along the old frontiers of the Roman empire. 
When it was introduced, moreover, part of the lands since 
occupied were then waste. In each community there was so 
much arable land, occupied and held in tracts by each family, 
and lands common to all. The latter, of course, were first 
subject to political usurpation. The purely military service 
due from land w T as longer preserved in some parts of Ger- 
many. When the feudal system was first established, short 
military excursions, especially when the crops were harvested, 
w r ere not onerous, Under the many terrible European wars 
military duties became more frequent and burdensome. Mili- 
tary duty, no matter what the length of service, was demanded 
by the lord of the manor ; and, at last, pressed by these burdens, 
the tenant was forced to relinquish rights the tax on which 
had become too hard to be borne. Thus the holders under 
the ancient tenure disappeared and were replaced by mere 
tenants at will. The Germans, however, long maintained 
their ancient traditions. 

At the time of the Reformation the Germans attempted to 
regain the rights of which the territorial lords had robbed 
them. Many of the people very naturally supposed there 
was some relation between liberty of conscience and liberty of 
the man. The kings and the nobles might wish to escape the 
exactions of the pope, but had no intention, if they could help 
it, of diminishing their own demands. It so happened, how- 
ever, that after the Reformation feudalism lost much of its 
power.* 

As in England, the first improvements proceeded from the 
towns. Manufactures and commerce had offered new. fields 
for industry. Many of the free cities possessed great power, 
and were eminent factors in the change in behalf of the rights 
of the laboring man. The famous league of the Hanseatic 

* Brodcrick's Reform of the English Land System, page 4. 



SCANDINAVIA. 103 

towns, at one time comprising sixty-four cities and twenty- 
four towns, showed the increase of this new elemeut of progress 
and reform. These were often able to put an army in the field. 

In Germany, the power of land as a political element did 
not centre in the empire as was the case in England under 
William the Conqueror. An innumerable host of princes, 
margraves, barons, counts and other nobles had concentrated 
the political power by becoming lords of the manor. The 
German systems were federations with electorates chosen 
by these petty princes. The essence of power was with the 
local ruler; the emperors were weak and their dominions 
variable and transitory. The separation of the Franks and 
Germans in the ninth century gave a more distinct character 
to Germany, but made little change in the condition of the 
people. Switzerland maintained a spirit of freedom longer, 
and it was chiefly due to the fact that her people remained 
freeholders. 

The condition of the Scandinavian nations differed from the 
other European countries. But little is known of their history 
prior to the eleventh century. The Goths largely displaced 
the ancient inhabitants, but the native element gave the 
dominant influence to religion and predatory habits. A bloody 
paganism prevailed until the twelfth century. Christian mis- 
sionaries gained some foothold in the ninth century, but they 
encountered more opposition, and found it a harder task to 
overthrow the cruel religious rites here than elsewhere. The 
old Norseman pictured his Valhalla, or paradise, as a place 
ay here he drank wine and mead from the skulls of his enemies. 
They were a hardy, vigorous race, those old sea kings, and 
pushed the prows of their piratical craft into every sea of the 
Western w r orld. Besides their incursions into Britain and 
Iceland they discovered and settled Greenland and the Ameri- 
can coast and held it, at least, from the ninth to the thirteenth 
centuries.* 

* Preface to Sinding's History of Scandinavia. 



104 MIDDLE AGES. 

Nobles grew up in Sweden, Denmark and Norway under 
the same system as in the other countries, but not to the same 
extent or with the same powers. The landholder and even 
many of the nobles cultivate the soil and engage in business. 
The sturdy, independent character of the old Vikings did not 
brook many restraints. The inhospitable character of much of 
the country did not furnish the means for very wealthy noble 
families. The rulers were indebted for their power largely 
to selection, and the governments of Sweden, Denmark and 
Norway have possessed less of absolute power, and have been 
more easily overthrown than other nations in Europe. The 
governments were of a mixed hereditary and elective character. 
In early times the peasantry was a species of corporation con- 
sisting of freeborn persons who were not only husbandmen 
and agriculturists but possessed real estate. Above the 
peasants ranked the chiefs or leaders representing families of 
influence and of greater property. From these the kings took 
or created earls {jades) to rule conquered provinces. The 
peasants and the nobles met at an assize, like the British Druids, 
round a circle of stones. Here they selected their kings, con- 
sulted on war or peace and settled cases judicially. Without 
the consent of this diet the king could not decide on any matter 
of importance.* 

In all its earlier history Scandinavia was cursed with slavery. 
Their slavery was of the worst character. The slaves were 
divided into two classes, native Scandinavians and foreigners. 
In their many wars and piratical expeditions they made 
prisoners, who, unless ransomed by their friends became slaves. 
They also obtained many slaves by trade. The condition of 
the slaves was very miserable. The ancient Norseman scarcely 
held them to be men. A slave might be beaten, starved, 
tormented or even killed by his master, and the abuser go 
unpunished. A slave could not buy, sell or inherit. They 

* Sinding's History of Scandinavia, page 38. 



SPANISH LANDHOLDING. 105 

could not take oath or marry. Slaves were mere chattels sold 
like other wares. They were usually not permitted to carry 
arms.* The one redeeming trait in Scandinavian slavery was 
that a kind master would sometimes liberate his slave for 
faithful service, and slaves when hired out were permitted to 
retain a portion of their earnings and with this purchase their 
freedom. Once free, they might acquire land, upon which 
they took the rank of peasants. This wretched system of 
slavery continued, as Sinding and other authorities inform 
us, until Scandinavia became thoroughly Christianized, when 
slavery was abolished. Sinding also tells us, that as Chris- 
tianity imbued the minds of the people they gave the women 
a share in the inheritance of property. 

The Spanish peninsula has been the theatre of many strange 
events. In the days of Carthaginian splendor, this was one 
of her richest provinces. Rome wrested it from her, and the 
Ostrogoths wrested it from Rome. Then the warlike Saracens 
conquered and held it for centuries. Again, the mingled 
elements of Goth and Latin, after a long and fierce struggle, 
regained the peninsula. Here the blood of Carthaginian, 
Egyptian, Latin, Goth and Saracen mingled. Here art 
flourished, but human freedom was not sufficiently prized. 
The fall of the Moorish kings did not mean the liberation of 
the people. 

On the restoration of Spanish government the country was 
parceled among the nobles. A spirit of independence, how- 
ever, lingered among the people, and towards the close of the 
fourteenth century, the Spanish parliament, or cortez, was the 
best, in Europe. Her tradesmen were organized into guilds, 
and her mercantile interests acquired power. The agricul- 
tural interests, however, were always under the feet of the 
nobles. The discovery of America turned the attention of the 
Spaniards to foreign conquest and adventure. The immense 

• * Sinding's History of Scandinavia, page 39. 



106 MIDDLE AGES. 

wealth poured into Spain from the robbery of the American 
nations, appeared to be sufficient to enrich all Spain, and 
place them above the necessity of labor. The result was the 
most instructive lesson ever administered to human nature. 
In the face of these great accumulations industry languished. 
In spite of the rapid growth of all the nations around her, 
Spain, if she has not retrograded, has, at least, not kept pace 
with the other nations of Europe. 

Unfortunately for the people, parliamentary bodies in 
Europe have largely represented land, and as the land chiefly 
belonged to the aristocracy, the aristocracy ruled the parlia- 
ments. In Germany, parliamentary developments are com- 
paratively modern. The electorate of Germany was a convo- 
cation of princes. The great free cities had governments of 
their own. In England, towns, cities and trades had repre- 
sentation. A very important factor in the leveling process, 
was the introduction of gunpowder in the art of war. For- 
merly an earl or knight rode about the country with his 
squire and a few faithful men at arms. They were mounted 
on good horses, covered with mail, and armed so that a com- 
mon yeoman, with his halberd and spear had no more chance 
in an encounter, than a lamb in the hands of a lion. When 
the plain foot soldier with his musket had become more than 
a match for the mounted knight, the situation had changed. 
The effect of gunpowder on the ancient freebooting baron or 
knight-errant was much greater than the sarcasm of Cer- 
vantes. Cannon was first used to bombard the strongholds of 
the robber barons. As gunpowder was employed in war, 
civilization advanced.* " When it was found that no coat of 
mail could keep out a small bullet, the knell of feudalry was 
rung." 

As an apology for all the inequality and injustice that took 
root and grew up during this period, it is asserted that these 

* Bell on Feudalism, page 165. 



CAUSE OF THE DARK AGES. 107 

were the necessary accompaniments of a rude and violent age. 
This is a mistake. The ancient founders of the nations of 
Northern Europe, when they first entered Europe, equally 
divided the land for the use of all the people. With all their 
rudeness they were a brave and independent race. The 
honor of having been chosen leaders for defense, was, by an 
avaricious and unscrupulous aristocracy, prostituted, and the 
office used first to rob and then enslave the people they were 
commissioned to defend. The insidious and slow steps to 
accomplish this, are now matters of history, and stand in 
broad relief as a lesson to the human race. But for these con- 
spiracies and crimes the European nations might have reached 
their present position several hundred years ago. The causes 
were the same which exist in any community where a privileged 
aristocracy have in their hands the machinery to turn the 
products of human labor into their own pockets. There was 
nothing done then which is not in a somewhat different man- 
ner being done to-day. The creation of an idle class is always 
a calamity. Titles are merely the insignia of luxurious 
vagabondage. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM AS ITS PEINCIPLES AFFECT 
SOCIETY AND OEGANIZED GOVERNMENT. 

Religious belief a pillar of law — The status and power of Christian nations — 
Religious political economy — Does Christianity teach socialism — Unholy 
alliance of church and state — A church founded on capital necessarily 
corrupt and idolatrous — Dates of the introduction of Christianity to 
Europe — Monastic orders — Slavery and woman's rights — Polygamy — 
Reformations — Sects — Denominations — Agnostics and the supernatural 
— Prof. Sumner's doctrine of a " free state " and the law of " contracts " — 
Startling effect of " ecclesiastical prejudice" — Dives and Lazarus. 

To what extent does religious sentiment govern mankind ? 
Another question : How far do organized religious bodies 
operate to promote the welfare of the great masses of laboring 
men ? No one will deny the power of religious beliefs in all 
ages of the world. Men, in all times, have inseparably con- 
nected every kind of law with divine authority. Governments, 
at once the most despotic, dishonest and sanguinary, have never 
hesitated to ally themselves, when they could, to church or 
priesthood, in order thereby to prevent their overthrow. 

It is estimated that in modern civilized society, judicial pro- 
ceedings take place in a large proportion of the serious offences 
committed, such as theft, robbery and murder. In the more 
numerous petty offences against a high order of morals which 
show a cruel and dishonest heart, we have evidence that a 
greater number of persons cherish the spirit that would com- 
mit crime, but are restrained within legal limits. Besides 
these classes of offenders there is a better class much larger 
than both, estimated in the proportion of five to one, who live 
on a higher plane. To whatever extent this latter class may 
108 



LAW AND CONSCIENCE. 109 

be subject to human weaknesses and temptations, they give 
evidence that they are restrained from the commission of crime 
and wrong by better motives; by a conviction that sin is 
morally wrong and degrading, and by the fear they enter- 
tain of Divine disapprobation. It will thus be seen that 
order is maintained in society, and human life and property 
made safe by the operation of two separate laws, the human 
and divine, and that one of these in its workings is much 
more potent and satisfactory than the other. Human law is 
not made for the virtuous but the vicious. The machinery of 
human government, although extremely expensive, has been 
found necessary in the almost unanimous opinion of mankind. 
It is a happy circumstance, however, that there exists a higher 
law in the human conscience. Some men call this public 
opinion, but public opinion is merely another kind of society 
tribunal which punishes by loss of caste or popular opprobrium. 
This also prevents the commission of crime by operating on 
the fears of men and women, and it may be truly said that 
no tribunal is more unsafe in its proceedings or more frequently 
unjust in its decisions. But for the class governed by a sense 
of right, courts and laws against criminals would be impossible; 
for offenders could not be depended upon to frame or execute 
rigid laws against themselves. The great anchor of a state, 
then, is this enlightened conscience of good men and women. 
From what source does society derive this best element? 
Some say it comes from the religious sentiment, almost uni- 
versal in the human race. Some say it comes from education, 
and that it can be secured by a course of instruction fully 
informing man of all the principles that should govern 
society, which will make him act with mathematical exactness 
in a right direction. Another class, inclined to reject the 
religious idea as mere superstition, and who are, nevertheless, 
perfectly well aware that knowledge is not virtue, claim that 
there is a law of development in the human race, that brought 
man up from the original mollusk to a monkey, and from a 
10 



110 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

monkey to the wonderful civilized man of the nineteenth 
century. It may be retorted on the latter that crime is as 
common in civilized as in barbarous communities and the most 
desperately wicked criminals known to jurisprudence have 
been highly educated and enlightened. 

It is not too much to assume that the nations of modern 
Christendom are the most highly advanced nations in art, 
manufactures, intelligence, and what has been styled free 
government. The United States, Britain, Switzerland, Ger- 
many, France, Italy, Spain, Austria and even Russia, are 
Christian countries, and so are Canada, Central and South 
America. By Christian, I mean countries where the Christian 
religion is either recognized by the state or where a majority 
of the people profess belief in it. The elder Adams endeav- 
ored to commend us to Tripoli by asserting that the United 
States was in no sense a Christian government. The state, 
properly j has no connection with the church ; it rests its con- 
ception of law on the will of the majority. At the same time 
the great mass of her people are believers in Christianity. 
Every officer, from the highest to the lowest, qualifies himself 
for the duties of public place by putting his hand on the Bible 
and calling God to witness that he means faithfully to dis- 
charge his duties. There are a great many intelligent free- 
thinkers, atheists, and agnostics who repudiate God, revela- 
tion and religion, and there are many others who reject 
ail the systems of religion known and entertain a theoretical, 
vague, undefined Theism of their own. Both of these classes 
are in the minority. While the republic of the United 
States is therefore not a Christian state, technically, it is a 
government of the people, and the people are a Christian 
people. It is, moreover, an offshoot of the Christian govern- 
ments of Europe, and has in its inception and history been 
subject to Christian influences. It has not been subject to 
or influenced by Mahometanism, Buddhism or the doctrines 
of Confucius or Zoroaster. It ought to be understood, that 



CHRISTIANITY WEAK IN AFRICA. Ill 

religion in any country affects not only its professional 
believers but all within its influence, including the government 
itself. 

Springing from a small despised sect, Christianity has spread 
until it is the controlling religion of all the nations of Europe, 
the continents and islands of the two Americas, Australia, a 
small part of British India, and other colonies of the leading 
modern nations. The most skeptical will readily admit that 
its influence over these is very great. Christianity is weak 
in Africa. Except in the French, British and Dutch colonies, 
and a somewhat degraded form in Abyssinia, it has little influ- 
ence over the people of that continent. It will not be denied 
that Africa presents the most debased population found on 
the globe. It has been styled the " Dark Continent." There 
we see governments that are little better than organized 
murder. The worst forms of slavery and the slave trade exist 
and flourish. Human life and human labor are worth less 
there than anywhere else. The personal freedom of the citizen 
is unknown. 

Asia is the next large portion of the world where Chris- 
tianity has comparatively little power. Up to a very recent 
period, the Nestorian Chaldeans, and one or two other small 
communities, were the only native Christians. In Asiatic 
Russia, of course, the Greek-Christian church is supposed to 
be the religion of the state. There it exists pretty much as 
Christianity exists in British India, or in the colonies of any 
other European power. It is an intrusive idea that may be 
said to have the sympathy or patronage of the government, 
and may become a factor of great strength when it thoroughly 
uproots the native faith, and has existed long enough to instill 
its precepts into the minds of the people. That period is not 
yet. In British India, Mahometanism, Buddhism and various 
other religious beliefs exist, and form, to a large extent, the 
minds of the people, just as Mahometanism, Buddhism, Par- 
seeism and modern Lamaism are potent in Russian Asia. The 



112 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

European conquerors learned, in attempting to subjugate 
Asiatic empires, that it is one thing to get political power, 
and another to control the minds of the people. For this 
reason European civilization and European ideas of govern- 
ment make slow progress. There is not a native representa- 
tive government, outside of colonial influence, in Asia, although 
it is true, that while elective rulers are hardly to be found, 
many of the governments only exist from popular toleration. 
To the encroachments of European civilization, Asia has been, 
until late years, impregnable. The Asiatic people are in no 
sense wild or barbarous. Their forms of society are very 
ancient. Several empires have for ages exhibited a very high 
degree of art. They have proven themselves capable of 
maintaining more dense populations than the nations of 
Christendom have so far coped with. Some of the religions 
that hold power over them, promulgate a dreamy, but not 
altogether degraded order of philosophy. The systems of 
morals taught by them cannot, as a general thing, be styled 
vicious. Bad systems aud societies have become incorporated 
with them, however, and they have, to some extent, degener- 
ated into idolatry and demonology. In nearly all Oriental 
religions, church and state are blended ; in other words, 
the rulers have succeeded in uniting the religious beliefs 
with their systems of government, and the religion thus 
controlled by tyrants and usurpers, has been prostituted and 
degraded. 

If religion comprised only the spiritual and supernatural, 
political economists would have little concern w T ith it. Relig- 
ious ideas, however, enter the domain of morals and law, 
affecting all the relations of citizens to each other. They 
operate on love, fear, social duty and human prejudice. The 
most skeptical will admit that the contemplation of a just and 
pure Deity has a tendency to elevate the character. Men and 
women who cultivate this affectionate love and worship are 
by far the best members of society. On the other hand, it 



ASIATIC RELIGIONS. 113 

operates also through fear. More men and women fear being 
damned, than being punished by the civil law. Religion 
has, therefore, always been a wonderful element of power. 
Even Thomas Paine admits the great power of religion, and, 
in his "Rights of Man," says: "All religions are, in their 
nature, mild and benign, and united with principles of moral- 
ity. They could not have made proselytes by professing 
anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting or immoral. 
Like everything else, they had their beginning, and they pro- 
ceeded by persuasion, exhortation and example." He goes 
on to say, that all mischiefs flowing from them have been 
caused by the alliance between church and state. 

In the Asiatic religions the supernatural predominates. Their 
codes of morals have not been of a very high order, at least, 
as compared with those of Christianity. It is true that Budd- 
hism, which has the greatest number of followers, believing 
in the transmigration of souls, will not, under their moral 
law, kill animals, as the souls of men and women may be in 
them, but sets of fanatical murderers have grown up among 
them. Nowhere in their teachings do we find a high regard 
for human life inculcated. So far from asserting the univer- 
sal brotherhood of man, systems of religious caste prevail. 
These Asiatic ecclesiastics do not encourage progress. The 
people remain stationary, their religious morals are not openly 
or secretly at war with the despotism of tyrants. We can, 
therefore, find the history of Asia written in her creeds ; blind 
submission to fate, ancestor worship and caste prejudice. In 
the first few hundred years of its existence, Christianity made 
considerable progress in Asia, in what had been the old Greek 
and Persian empire. It spread rapidly up to the time of 
Heraclitus, and had very considerably ameliorated the condi- 
tion of the people. It had reached far into Central Asia, and 
even to China. It is difficult to conjecture what the result 
would have been, if it had thoroughly indoctrinated the great 
masses of Central Asia. From its very nature, it is usually 



114 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

slow in its growth, and gradual in its progress to power over 
communities. It inculcates the doctrines of peace, moreover, 
and thus checks, instead of encouraging a martial spirit. This 
left it weak to resist the encroachments of warlike and barbar- 
ous violence, and, on the Asiatic continent, it fell before the 
aggressive and military genius of Mahometanism. 

It had been held by many that early Christianity taught 
socialism. It appeared to be the practice of the early disciples 
and apostles. In the 41st verse of the 2d chapter of Acts, 
we are informed, that in one day " about three thousand souls 
were added to the church;" and in the 44th verse, we are 
told that " all who believed were together, and had all things 
common." In the 32d verse of the 4th chapter of the same 
book, we also find " Neither said any that aught of the things 
he possessed was his own, but they had all things common." 
In examining the question as to whether Christianity taught 
socialism, we find, in the first place, that there is nothing in 
the teachings of the founder of the church enjoining it. It 
was undoubtedly a convenience for the first organization of 
the church, in Jerusalem, to have this unity of interest. Then 
a believer became, to a certain extent, ostracised, without 
home or friends, and, possibly, for the time, driven from the 
employment that supported him. The convert connected 
himself with an organization, the founder of which had just 
been put to an ignominious death. The chief priests and 
rulers were not slow to exhibit the kind of treatment they in- 
tended to bestow on the new sect. Each convert was also 
expected in turn, to make proselyting, to a large extent, his 
business. It was not demanded that the believer, who had 
any property, should sell all he had aud turn it into the com- 
mon stock, but he was enjoined, if occasion offered, to sell all 
that he had, and to give to the poor. Ananias was not con- 
demned for withholding, but for pretending to give where he 
did not. Peter, in reprimanding him, told him that the 
property was his own, and before he gave it, he could do 



CHRISTIANITY COSMOPOLITE. 115 

what he pleased with it. We find, shortly afterward, the 
apostles enjoining converts to give, as God had prospered them, 
to the necessities of the saints. A disposition to be largely 
supported from the contribution of believers was very freely 
condemned, and it was said, that " he who doth not provide for 
they of his own household, has denied the faith, and is worse 
than an infidel." While it was asserted that those giving 
their time to the ministry were entitled to support, one of the 
most active apostles boasted that he had, in addition, labored 
with his hands, and had not been a charge on the church. 
Originally, says Hartwig, when the Christian communions 
were formed, all the members contributed according to their 
ability, to one common fund, for the purpose of good works ; 
with the extension of Christianity, this general display of love 
abated, contributions became less general and liberal, and as 
it acquired power, or became allied with the state, changed 
into regular, and, in some cases, involuntary taxes.* With 
the single exception of Mahometanism, all other religions, 
except Christianity, were "limited in their design and local 
in their range." They were the images of separate national- 
ities, f The essential doctrine of Christianity is the brother- 
hood of mankind in all nations. It taught the worthlessness 
of forms in religion. Its founder denounced hypocrisy, and 
enjoined a pure life. It held all the moral law of Judaism 
to be intact. Jesus of Nazareth declared that "not one jot or 
tittle of the law should pass until all was fulfilled." ' Adding 
to these the generous and benignant doctrines of Christianity 
He broke down the wall that made the Jews an isolated and 
peculiar people, and sent forth his disciples with this en- 
lightened and renovated system, as a law to all races and 
nations. 

Such were the doctrines carried in a peaceful, missionary 

* Brentano's History of Guilds, etc., page 7. 

t Hardwick's Christ and other Masters, page 42. 



116 CHEISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

way, into countries both civilized and barbarous, after the 
death of Christ ; and, in a comparatively short period of time, 
they had spread through a portion of Eastern Asia, Northern 
Africa and large portions of Europe. What was left of the 
Grecian empire became largely Christian. Christianity strug- 
gled for the ascendant in the Roman empire, under a fierce 
persecution. There it had to encounter not only the fury 
of a luxurious, despotic and corrupt court, but the criticism and 
hostility of a brilliant galaxy of philosophers. Tacitus merely 
refers to Christianity as a sect of Judaism. The stoics and 
the epicures alike treated it with contempt. Not only did it 
have to contend with the interest and the prejudice of the 
existing religion, but with the low moral condition of a people 
steeped in vice and corruption. From its earliest history, Roman 
law had opposed polygamy, and it is stated that for five hun- 
dred and twenty years there was no such thing as a divorce in 
Rome.* Under the empire the marriage tie was less sacred. 
Juvenal speaks of a woman who had eight husbands in five 
years. St. Jerome relates an incident of a woman who mar- 
ried her twenty-third husband, and she was his twenty-first 
wife. Seneca denounced the free divorce system as a great 
evil. Besides this extreme laxity of the marriage tie, domes- 
tic morals in other respects were very loose. Mr. Lecky, in 
. tracing the causes of decay, attributes much to the foregoing, 
and also dates the decline to the introduction of general 
slavery at the close of the Punic wars.f 

The religion that should have given balance to the state 
was compounded of a profligate pantheon and the hypercritical 
speculations of the stoics and epicurians. The people were 
venal and debased, and society was in a decline so hopeless 
that nothing seemed to be left for it but the fire and brim- 
stone that had closed the career of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

* Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. ii., page 300. 
t Ibid., page 302. 



CHURCH AND STATE. 117 

Such was the condition of the Roman empire when the apos- 
tles of Christianity struggled for its conversion. There was 
scarcely a doctrine taught by Christians that was not a living 
caveto against the whole Roman system. It made its way 
slowly but steadily. Women have always been quicker than 
men to embrace the doctrines of Christianity. Some of the 
most distinguished Roman matrons became its converts, and 
this only served to stimulate the persecution. Households 
were divided and embittered against each other, for if the 
Christian doctrine of universal brotherhood should prevail, it 
would abolish the privileges of Roman citizenship, and open 
the door to the equality of the people of all her provinces. 
In spite of these difficulties, the struggling church finally 
prevailed. Before the conversion of the Emperor Constan- 
tine, a.d. 312, it has been supposed, by some authorities, 
that a majority of the Roman people had become converted. 
Lecky, in his History of European Morals, says there was not a 
majority, and the probabilities are that its active, energetic 
followers, who had to risk their lives for their opinions, con- 
stituted much less than a majority. 

The Emperor Constantine rebuilt Constantinople, origin- 
ally Byzantium, a.d. 338, twenty-six years after he had em- 
braced Christianity. It was not until July 9th, a.d. 381, 
that Bishop Nestorius was nominated as the first Patriarch 
of Constantinople. The term Pope comes from the Greek 
pappas and papa, father, or grandfather, and was originally 
applied to bishops. In A. D. 606, nearly three hundred years 
after the conversion of Constantine, Pope Benedict III. 
induced the Emperor of the East to confine the title to the 
chief prelates of Rome. While the greatness and power of 
Christianity usually dates from the conversion of the Em- 
peror Constantine, it is extremely doubtful whether its alli- 
ance with the state did any good to Christianity. It has been 
said, on the other hand, that the conversion of the state was 
the ruin of Rome. 



118 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

Lecky informs us * that all the evidence shows that the 
Christian Church went stoutly to work to reform Roman 
morals. In order to preserve the purity of marriage, it 
elevated it to a sacrament.f We have only one of two things 
to believe. Christianity must have failed in all its teachings, 
such as the universal brotherhood of man, the doctrine of 
peace, to provide things honestly in the sight of all men, 
purity, justice, meekness and temperance, or else, having 
faithfully taught these truths with any degree of success, the 
elements of Roman power were inevitably bound to crumble. 

The Emperor Constantine called the council of Nice, which 
assembled June 19th, a. d. 325, and sat until August, three 
hundred and eighteen bishops attending. They manufac- 
tured a creed, and attempted otherwise to give a form to the 
religion that came to abolish all forms. This first great so- 
called Christian convocation condemned the doctrines of the 
Arians. General Ecclesiastical Councils were held in Con- 
stantinople, chiefly against heresy, a.d. 381, 553, 680 and 
869. The church was torn by dissensions on points of doc- 
trine as well as on the exercise of temporal authority by 
spiritual rulers. The idea of a supervision of nations by the 
church was probably well meant. This was one great pur- 
pose of the exercise of the papal power. Unjust wars were 
not to be permitted. The papal authority was to be supreme 
among nations. Good men entertained great hopes that the 
warlike power of cruel nations could thus be ended. Unhap- 
pily, the exercise of political power by the church plunges it 
into an arena for which it never was designed. In attending 
to duties of that sort, it usually forgets its legitimate business, 
which is to convert men and leave to them the task of reform- 
ing governments. 

Other questions divided the church. All forms of religion 
have been fertile in schisms. Schisms as to doctrine, and 

* History of European Morals, vol. ii., page 316. f Ibid., page 347. 



MONASTIC ORDERS. 119 

much more frequently, schisms as to form. The question of 
figures and images in churches was a fruitful source of trouble. 
Several monarchs lost their thrones, and a few of them their 
lives, during the struggle to turn images and pictures out of, 
and into, the Christian churches. How such adjuncts to 
worship should ever have crept in under the teachings of 
Christ and the ten commandments it is difficult to imagine. 
Another innovation was monastic orders. The paganism 
overthrown in Rome and Greece had an element of asceticism 
that took this shape under the new religion. The supposed 
virtue of remaining unwashed and uncombed, in a half-starved 
condition, in a cave, or on the top of a pillar, derived neither 
encouragement nor command from the teachings of Christ. 
Monastic orders were injected into the kind of Christianity that 
had an early existence in Asia, and were borrowed from other 
religions. It was the third century of the Christian era before 
monastic orders were introduced in Europe.* In two or three 
hundred years they multiplied until they could be found in every 
city, and until laws were enacted against them. The organized 
church soon began to own property. Instead of limiting its 
means of support, according to the plan of the founder, to the 
voluntary contribution of believers, it aspired to be independent 
of such accidents. The gifts of the pious were encouraged 
and held up to be a virtue that would atone for sin. Bequests 
from dying saints and sinners commenced to be an important 
mode of adding to the fixed property of the church. The 
real estate of the church grew to be as formidable as the aris- 
tocratic resources of the priesthood in Egypt. The power 
thus created threatened to become a means of levying a tax 
on production, for all time, to be drawn, of course, out of the 
labor of each year, and without the slightest regard for what 
the coming generation might want in the way of a church 
organization. No church should ever be permitted to exist 

* Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. ii., page 101. 



120 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

on organized capital. Outside of the place it occupies for 
worship, all church property should be taxed, and such accu- 
mulations discouraged. A priesthood established on the 
revenues of land or capital is only less objectionable than an 
aristocracy so created : both are bad. When a church cannot 
obtain all it needs from the generosity and couscience of its 
hearers and believers it may be taken for granted that it is 
time for it, as an organization, to close business. In addition 
to the general jealousy engendered by the steady accumulation 
of property in the hands of ecclesiastics, and the inevitable 
tendency of selfish, designing men to get into and to control 
such an establishment, the confidence of the people in the 
priesthood began to be shaken. With or without reason, 
frightful stories were told about the morals of high dignitaries, 
and also about the religious orders. Such was the condition 
of the Christian Church at the close of the first six hundred 
years of its history. Its instincts and genius should have taught 
it to avoid all these abuses. The simplicity of Christ's teach- 
ings had been buried beneath a selfish and corrupt hierarchy. 

So long as Christians were liable to be torn by wild beasts, 
there was little danger of the church receiving any but genu- 
ine converts. An emperor, clothed with patronage, at the 
head of the church, was likely to have insincere followers. 
This established religion had to submit to another infliction. 
The philosophers interjected their theories into it, just as the 
Philistines put the mice and the emerods into the Ark of the 
Covenant. They had done this with the old pantheon, why 
not with the new ? They were theorists and philosophical 
speculators, not repentant sinners. It is surprising that Chris- 
tianity survived all these calamities. That it did so is no small 
argument in favor of its divine origin. Organized Chris- . 
tianity had become thus debauched, when the entrance of 
Mahometanism to the field of thought and morals, a.d. 612, 
marked a new epoch. 

Christianity was introduced, as Bede informs us, into 



EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION. 121 

Britain, in the 64th year of the Christian era. It is well known, 
however, that England was essentially pagan long after. A 
careful comparison of the dates of its general acceptance in 
the countries of Europe, and the initial steps in the civilized 
progress of these states is instructive. Although introduced 
into Ireland in the second century, it was not until A. d. 432, 
that it obtained controlling influence under the teachings of St. 
Patrick. It was introduced among the Goths in 376, but 
did not attain much influence until the Gothic people had 
been formed into their European governments. It was estab- 
lished in France by Clovis, a.d. 496. The Saxons were 
converted by Augustine in 597 ; but Christianity was not 
introduced into what is known as Saxony, until 785 under 
Charlemagne. Harold introduced it to Denmark in 827, and 
it was not established in Sweden until the eleventh century. 
It was introduced into Norway and Iceland a.d. 998. It 
will be remembered that these Scandinavian nations had a 
bloody idolatry, characterized by fierce and unclean rites. 
Christianity was introduced into Bohemia, under Borsiva, 
A.D. 894. It was introduced into Russia, by Swiatoslaf, 
A. D. 940 or 942. The Teutonic knights, on returning from 
the holy wars, A.D. 1227, introduced the Christian doctrine 
to Prussia, which they had obtained permission to " convert 
and conquer." Care must be taken not to confound the in- 
troduction of Christianity with the real christianization of the 
masses. A careful study of the nations or countries named 
will show that a gradual change in their condition, for the 
better, began with these periods. Slavery, in its worst forms, 
existed in every one of them prior to that time, and for a 
considerable period after. Guilds were associations of towns, 
trades or religious societies, for mutual protection and benefit. 
They were introduced early in the eighth century, and were 
fostered by the priesthood. Guilds, and the organization of 
the people, were the means of introducing juries, about A. d. 

886. The system by which a man or a cause could only be 
11 



122 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

tried by the equals of the parties in interest was improved 
and systematized from that period. 

Christianity was the means of abolishing polygamy in the 
German and Scandinavian nations ; indeed, the evil existed up 
to, or after, the time of Charlemagne. Until Rome had be- 
come Christian it never attempted to elevate the character of 
the people of its provinces. It did not, to any extent, give 
its colonies political power, or teach them the arts of peace. 
Christianity, on the other hand, immediately set to work to 
convert and elevate the people. 

During these struggles it must be remembered that the church 
had a constant war within itself. Prior to the invention or 
introduction of the printing press in Europe, the doctrines of 
Christianity could only be taught through the organized 
priesthood. As nations became converted from barbarous 
forms of religion, they tried to incorporate into Christianity 
many of their old ideas. The lack of a general literature 
rendered it difficult to detect such impostures. Had the 
Christian Church been able to retain all its purity and sim- 
plicity, and had it always used its authority for a good pur- 
pose, Europe to-day would have been in a much better 
condition. As the church grew in temporal power, and 
began to absorb the wealth of the nations, it excited the 
jealousy and hatred, not only of the people, but of the civil 
authorities. Its very wealth betrayed those who were in 
charge of it into a course of life altogether inconsistent 
with their professions. A great hierarchy degenerated, of 
necessity, into forms. An apostle traveling in poverty, perse- 
cution and hardship, to preach the doctrines of peace and the 
brotherhood of man, was one thing, and a great priesthood 
charged with disbursing the revenues of the church, quite 
another. Where there is a great temptation to simulate, there 
will always be an inevitable tendency to substitute idols for a 
pure worship, ceremonies in the place of a pure life, and forms 
where the substance is lacking. 



THE PRINTING PRESS. 123 

The introduction of the art of printing was destined to 
have a very considerable effect on society and the church. 
Books, hitherto confined to cloisters, began to be read by the 
people. At such a time the assumptions of personal sanctity 
and the power to dogmatise over the minds of men was not 
safe, and the Protestant religion followed. It was at first a 
protest against the spiritual authority of the Pope. Reforms 
in the church were not new before the time of Luther in 
1517. The reform of the Albigenses in 1177 was of a 
similar character, as was that of Wickliff in England in 
1360. Huss in Bohemia, in 1405, introduced reforms for 
the many abuses that had crept into the church. For this 
action he and Jerome of Prague were burned at the stake. 
Savouarola in 1498 attempted the reformation of the Papal 
church in Italy. These were some of the leaders of the 
great revolutions that swept over Europe, but reformers 
within the church had steadily striven against its abuses 
through all ages, and the final separation of the Eastern 
and Western empires of the Christian Church was due to 
their efforts. The Greek Church, one of the great branches 
of Christianity, has been separated from the Roman Church 
for twelve hundred years ; its present seat and centre being in 
Russia. 

After the Reformation the property of the church, accu- 
mulated during ages, was stripped from it. Monastic orders 
were to some extent broken up. The doctrine of indulgences 
was scoffed at, not only by sinners, but by men who had been 
educated as priests. In the revulsion all the branches of the 
church became better. It is true there was bloody persecu- 
tion, but of course only in cases where the church was closely 
allied with the state. Stripping the great central church 
organization of power had a tendency to increase the power 
and weaken the responsibility of kings. It might have re- 
sulted in the creation of strong despotisms in the leading 
nations but for the rise of the people, the enfranchisement of 



124 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

whom was in considerable degree due to Christianity. Con- 
stitutional governments were beginning to be understood. 
Representative bodies assumed force and character, and from 
the time of Henry VIII., when the Reformation occurred in 
England, little more than a hundred years elapsed until 
Charles I. was beheaded for asserting royal prerogatives 
against the wishes of the people. 

Following the Protestant reformation of Zuinglius, Luther, 
Calvin and Knox, came a host of other reformers. The hope 
that universal Christian peace might prevail on the recogni- 
tion of the spiritual power of the Pope had faded away when 
new bodies emerged from the Protestant Church to secure if 
possible the Christian doctrine of peace and good will toward 
men. The Quakers, eminent for many virtues, have made 
this one of the prominent reasons for their departure, to- 
gether with their general protest against all forms, vanity 
and extravagance. That such a people should have been the 
subjects of cruel persecution seems hardly credible. Their 
influence is not confined to those of their own immediate per- 
suasion. The Menonites were originally a species of German 
Quakers, but on being driven from Germany took refuge in 
Southern Russia. There for generations they founded a 
worthy and industrious community, protesting against all 
wars, and as they have resolutely refused to violate their con- 
science in this particular, most of them have recently been 
forced to emigrate to the United States. Then there followed 
Methodists, Baptists, and many other sects and denomina- 
tions. As the Protestant churches were unhappily estab- 
lished by the state, the alliance carrying with it poison and 
corruption into the body of the church, there came still 
another swarm of " dissenters," who protested against all 
alliances between the Church and State. The foundation of 
the great deep of thought had been broken up. The Catho- 
lic Church said all this was the inevitable wanderings of 
heresy, and they pointed to the rapid growth of freethinking 



ATHEISM AND ANARCHY. 125 

and atheistic opinions in support of their theory. Books 
were written against every kind of religious belief. Priest- 
craft and statecraft were confounded, and the church hav- 
ing kept bad company, the charge that it was the tool of 
despotism was not altogether unfounded. Historians wrote 
books, ostensibly against the Catholic Church, but really aimed 
at all religion. A profession of skepticism began to be con- 
sidered as rather creditable to the intellect. Even the Re- 
formed churches seemed to have a tendency to form new 
hierarchies. Cant and hypocrisy formulate the externals of 
religion. A " wealthy religious body " is really as much of 
a deception as a " fashionable church." Neither of them 
have anything in common with the Man who " had not 
where to lay his head." 

The American and French revolutions treated religion 
differently. In America the colonists contented themselves 
by forever divorcing church and state. Everything con- 
nected with the former must be voluntary. The French 
people found a corrupt hierarchy closely allied with a corrupt 
aristocracy; and, confounding religion with priestcraft, the 
Jacobin clubs reveled in denying all authority, human and 
divine. Atheism was rampant. Agnosticism can raise ques- 
tions, can revile, can speculate; it cannot create rules for life, 
or build society, or restrain men from the commission of evil ; 
it has nothing to offer but skeptical doubts about all things. 
Napoleon I. was not a Christian, but he said he could not 
govern France without religion, and he restored the Catholic 
Church. One would have thought that the seeds of Atheism 
had been so sown that such a restoration would have been 
extremely difficult, if not impossible. Governments had 
shaken off not only the king and the aristocracy, but had set 
divine authority at defiance, and were rejoicing in their free- 
dom from all restraint. France indeed had, and still has 
within her, strong skeptical elements. Her capital is a hot- 
bed for theorists, and her manners tend rather to vitiate than 



126 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

to elevate the tone of Christendom ; but in spite of the licen- 
tiousness of her press, the lax morals of her capital, and in 
the face of the teachings of all her philosophers, the masses 
of the laboring classes of France draw their inspirations of 
devotion and duty from the Christian Church. 

In Britain, Christianity is a strong element of power. 
Scoffers, skeptics, freethinkers, backed by an army of philoso- 
phers and scientists, constantly are at work to explain away 
much of the accepted data in the formula of believers. While 
the philosophers and the scientists fill the prints and are heard 
in the lecture room, the great mass of the British people are 
really or professedly religious. Here in the United States, in 
the midst of a universal school system, her books, her pam- 
phlets solid and flippant, the majority of her people are true 
or nominal Christians. If her freethinkers are not very 
numerous they are able and adroit. They are propped up by 
devices called scientific, and schools of philosophy that pride 
themselves on being rigidly practical. Superstitious belief is 
pronounced unphilosophic and incredible, the church a con- 
vocation of dupes and ignoramuses ; religious zeal is branded 
as hypocrisy, but let no man figure upon the results of political 
reforms or social changes who refuses to take into account 
the power of the Christian religion. The teachings of the 
Man of Nazareth are echoed from ten thousand pulpits each 
week, the most staid and responsible members of society attend 
and listen. Innumerable Sunday-schools are instilling into the 
minds of tender children the ideas and doctrines of Christianity. 

Christianity, although still encumbered, was never so free 
from political demoralization or from being used by tyrants, 
selfish interests, or all the riff-raff that have " stolen the 
livery of Heaven to serve the devil in," since the time 
when Constantine was converted, as it is to-day. If the 
Christian religion has been reduced in the public esteem 
or weakened for the accomplishment of good, this misfor- 
tune is attributable to the insincerity and unfaithfulness of 



UNHOLY ALLIANCE. 127 

many of those who have assumed to be its priesthood. Its 
potency does not consist in its wealth, respectability, or in 
alliances with the state. All these are a travesty on the religion 
of Christ. In defending the cause of the downtrodden and 
the weak; in rebuking wrong in high places; in simplicity 
and purity its " great strength lies." John Adams wrote : 
" One of the most calamitous events for human liberty was a 
wicked confederacy between the temporal grandees and the 
priesthood, mutually to uphold each other." * For these 
reasons many defenders of popular liberty permitted them- 
selves to drift into a position antagonistic to the church. In 
the rigid separation of religion from all civil power the safety 
of true religion rests, but irreligious rulers are not, as a general 
thing, safe custodians of the interests of men. Even John 
Adams, not an admirer of religion, was forced to write some- 
what bitterly, but significantly: "I believe it will be found 
universally true that no great enterprise for the honor or hap- 
piness of mankind was ever achieved without a large mixture 
of that noble infirmity." f 

What has been known as the Christian religion has had 
two sides presented to the world. Its principles and the sin- 
cere believers in them, and religious organizations, churches 
allied to the state, hierarchies and the abuses that have clus- 
tered round them. The skeptic sees one face and does not 
believe in the other. It is true we had professors of religion 
in the United States who connived at or shut their eyes to the 
sin of slavery ; but it is also true that not only the Quakers, 
who made the first early persistent protest against this wicked- 
ness, but also the devout, earnest Christian people of other 
denominations, who wished to see no stain on the name of 
Christianity, by their prayers and efforts abolished American 
slavery. 

In the same Avay a pure Christianity will always protest 

* Works of John Adams, vol. iii., page 450. f Ibid., page 452. 



128 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 



against wronp;. When the voice of the Master is heard from 
the lips of his followers, it comes with a rebuke to selfishness, 
usury, unfair dealing, oppression of the poor, pride, aristocracy, 
fashionable religion, hypocrisy, and the folly and wrong of 
amassing great and unnecessary fortunes. Unless the voice 
of the church is bribed to silence it will espouse the cause 
of the struggling poor. 

Christendom is the centre of the world's progress and high 
civilization to-day. It is, therefore, proper to consider how 
much of that power and success cau be traced to its teachings. 
It is fair to estimate Christianity by its works. Among 
these are the elevation of women, the abolition of slavery in 
Europe and America, and of polygamy in Xorthern and Central 
Europe. If it has been stained by selfish and hypocritical 
professors, it has been adorned by sincere and vigorous 
reformers. 

Modern agnosticism discredits what is styled the supernatural 
in the region of morals. There is a hungering and thirsting 
for some rule of life outside of the law of God and an sesthet- 
ical religion divorced from the supernatural. Separate the 
church and its worship from the idea of an intelligent, power- 
ful Deity, and you strip religion of its vitality. If it was 
possible to destroy in the minds of men the belief in a here- 
after, and in future responsibility, and make them believe that 
they were like the beasts that perish, mankind would be hope- 
lessly degraded. 

Professor Sumner, in his work " What Social Classes Owe 
Each Other," says : " The only social improvements which 
are now conceivable lie in the direction of a more complete 
realization of free men united by contract." * * * "It 
follows, however, that one man in a free state cannot claim help 
from, and cannot be charged to give help to another." * He 
also says : " The greatest part of the preaching in America 

* What Social Classes Owe Each Other, page 26. 



AN ECCLESIASTICAL PREJUDICE. 129 

consists in injunctions to those who have taken care of them- 
selves, to perform their assumed duty to take care of others." 
He adds, very naively : " Whatever may be one's private 
sentiments, the fear of appearing cold and hard-hearted 
causes those conventional theories of social duty and these 
assumptions of social fact to pass unchallenged." The 
professor exclaims, "Is it wicked to be rich? Is it mean to 
be a capitalist?" and proceeds thus : " There is an old eccle- 
siastical prejudice in favor of the poor, and against the rich. 
In days when men acted by ecclesiastical rules, these prejudices 
produced waste of capital, and helped mightily to replunge 
Europe into barbarism. The prejudices are not yet dead, but 
they survive in our society as ludicrous contradictions and 
inconsistencies." * 

This is certainly a very remarkable statement, and we ap- 
prehend the professor would find it difficult to fix the date 
when appeals from Christian teachers, in behalf of the poor, 
" re-plunged Europe into barbarism." He made a mistake in 
the term when he used the word " ecclesiastic." Ecclesiasti- 
cism has neither prejudices nor principles. It is a mere form, 
a shell. Religion may be within it, or it may not. It was 
ecclesiasticism that preached, when he says, " Preaching in 
England used to be all done to the poor — that they ought to 
be contented with their lot, and respectful to their betters." 
"We are grateful that he said " used to be," as regards Eng- 
land, and thankful that he bears a different kind of testimony 
as to American Christian teachings. It was not ecclesiasti- 
cism, but the religion of Christ, that had " a prejudice in 
favor of the poor, and against the rich." Jesus Christ, who 
was certainly not an ecclesiastic, gives for our instruction the 
story of Dives and Lazarus. He tells us also that a certain 
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among 
thieves. The priest and Levite who were "ecclesiastics," 

* What Social Classes Owe Each Other, page 44. 



130 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

were the professor's " free men of a free democracy/' who 
were ^nder no obligations to neglect their business and waste 
their capital on a man who ought to have had sense enough 
to keep out of the thieves' way. The Samaritan seems to 
have been one of those " crochety sentimentalists " who are 
afflicted with a false "conventional theory of social duty," 
but his example will be held up for emulation when political 
economists of the Sumner school have been forgotten. In an 
age where selfishness threatens the very existence of society, 
help alone can come from a better understanding and more 
general acceptance of the leading idea of Christianity : "What- 
soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them." 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE MAHOMETAN SYSTEM, AND THE GOVEENMENTS AND 
FOKMS OF SOCIETY FOUNDED ON IT. 

Arabia the blest and curst — The robber of the desert a founder of empires — 
Democratic tendencies of Mahometanism — Its foundation — Plunder and 
polygamy — Furnished an occupation for the large class who seek to sub- 
sist by war or their wits — Slavery legalized — Women degraded — War on 
property rights of women — Mahometan laws of taxation — Land tenure — 
Divorce — Wills forbidden — Temperance and abstinence by law — Licen- 
tiousness established on earth and deified in heaven — Pure Mahometan- 
ism, or Theism — Worship of the Prophet an innovation — Christianity 
and Mahometanism the only cosmopolite religions — Reformations in the 
Mahometan church — The Wahabees — Mahdis — Causes of Mahometan 
decay. 

The peninsula, or region of country lying between the 
Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, with a thousand miles of front- 
age on the Indian Ocean, and extending indefinitely north- 
ward across the deserts toward the country watered by the 
Euphrates, has, at different periods, passed under many 
names, but in literature is best known as Arabia. Ptolemy 
classified Arabia into three parts or portions, the stony, or 
mountainous ; the desert, or sandy ; and Happy Arabia, 
"Arabia Felix." It is about seven hundred and fifty miles 
from Bassora to Suez, and nearly the same distance from the 
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, the southern part of the penin- 
sula being wider. There is no navigable river in the penin- 
sula. Streams of any kind are scarce, and in the greater 
portion rain rarely falls ; sometimes years pass without it. 
Along the Persian Gulf there is a strip of land, partially cul- 
tivated, into which the drifting sands have constantly strug- 

131 



132 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

gled to make inroads, but which maintains a varying 
population. None of the mountains of the peninsula rise to 
any great height. Most of them are sharp, rugged peaks, 
" stony land " without trees or verdure. " Arabia Felix " is 
in the southwestern part. Immediately on the sea the coast is 
a sandy plain, Et Tehama, but a short distance inland, there 
are mountains interspersed with fruitful valleys. This is the 
land of frankincense and myrrh, of gold and precious stones. 
JSiebuhr has enumerated fourteen provinces in the fertile por- 
tion of Yemen. In ancient times, Strabo says, it was divided 
into five kingdoms, and that its chief cities abounded in 
palaces and temples. Coffee is one of its valuable exports, 
and from one of its ports, Mocha, many other spices have 
long been shipped. In all ages a very valuable commerce 
has been carried across the deserts on the backs of camels, 
the larger of these animals being able to carry a load of one 
thousand pounds. 

Egypt, Greece, Persia, India, the cities on the Mediter- 
ranean and the rich portions of Arabia, all furnish articles 
thus sent through these dreary regions. Commerce, the car- 
rying trade and the productions of Arabia Felix, yielded 
subsistence for the people of Arabia. Outside of Yemen, 
several other provinces had considerable cities and trade. 
The two most remarkable of these cities, during a long period, 
have been Mecca and Medina, two hundred and seventy 
miles apart, in the same geographical district. The latter 
lias some agricultural land around it, but Mecca is a veritable 
city of the desert, good water, even, being scarce. Oakley 
informs us that in its greatest prosperity it was about the size 
of Marseilles. Mecca was known to the Greeks under the 
name of Macoraba. Outside of the agricultural or spice dis- 
tricts, and a few valleys, the great bulk of Arabia is a rocky 
or sandy desert waste. Burckhardt, the traveler, informs us 
that it is the most desolate portion of the globe, and that the 
natives call it the " empty abode." 



THE ROBBER OF THE DESERT. 133 

Under a tropical sky, and without lake or river to furnish 
moisture, the atmosphere is dry and burning. The bare, 
treeless, rocky peaks are little more inviting than the sea of 
driftiug sand. None of her mountains reach the region of 
eternal snow. A few of them in the southwest portion, sev- 
eral days' journey from the sea, reach an altitude of five or six 
thousand feet, and such is the peculiar atmosphere of that 
section, that at times, for one or two months of the winter, 
snow lies on them, while across the straits of Babel-Mandeb, 
in Africa, the mountains, reaching nine or ten thousand feet 
altitude, never have snow. Hot and deadly winds blow over 
the desert of Arabia, and the whole region is subject to mala- 
rial influences that render it difficult for the natives to live 
there, and fatal to foreigners. 

The Arabs have always boasted of their independence, and 
say their country was never conquered, and that they never 
paid tribute. Its poverty and desolation is its defense. The 
Bedouin, who courses over it, is an active, restless, independ- 
ent man, to whom war is at once a trade and a luxury. He 
has everything to gain and nothing to lose by adventure. 
Ockley says that the Arabs have been professional robbers 
since the days of Job,* and all other authorities corroborate 
the statement, running back to Strabo and Herodotus. In 
their military movements they can make a journey of four or 
five hundred miles in eight or ten days.f The horse is sup- 
posed to be a native of Arabia. Their horses are not large, 
but of a fine and hardy variety. When threatened by an 
invading army some noted emir would hoist a rallying 
standard, then all that could be collected would make com- 
mou cause against the enemy. Whole armies have perished 
in the desert attempting to pursue them. J In this way the 
wandering Arabs have maintained their independence and 

* History of the Saracens, page 9. 
f Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 7. 
X Chrichton's History of Arabia, vol. i., page 64. 
12 



134 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

a vigorous, self-denying existence. Often pressed sore by 
famine, they have wandered, with belts tied about their waists, 
subsisting on a little gum. Besides resisting attacks and 
preying on caravans, they have often carried their predatory 
incursions into the richest of the enemy's provinces. The 
Arabs planted date-palms wherever they could induce them 
to grow, and this is one of their sources of subsistence. When 
locusts stripped the country of its herbage they ate the locusts. 

While it may be difficult to conceive of a very high order 
of manly qualities among a nation of professional robbers, all 
authorities agree that many things esteemed as virtues have 
been sedulously cultivated among them. Grapes grow, and 
wine to some extent is produced in their country, and fermented 
mare's milk was not unknown, but the virtue of temperance 
has always been rigidly inculcated. Diodorus tells us that 
the Nabatheans (Arabs) were prohibited by their laws from 
sowing, planting, drinking wine or building houses, and that 
the penalty for a violation of either law was death. The 35th 
chapter of Jeremiah contains similar information. The 
Rechabites (Arabs) were held up to the Israelites as an ex- 
ample because they had obeyed the laws of their fathers, 
refused wine and dwelt in tents. 

The cities of southwest Arabia and the richer portions have 
been conquered on many occasions. Even these were so sur- 
rounded by deserts that they were hard to take and harder to 
hold, but they were at different times under the yoke of Abys- 
sinia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia. The victor's grasp on 
these regions was but frail, however. The roving Arabs 
always recognized and usually stood by their brethren in the 
cities, or those living in the cultivated regions. They were, to 
a great extent, the merchants and freighters for them. The 
people in the cities strove to keep on good terms with them, 
and had usually little difficulty in securing their aid for war- 
like operations when there was a reasonable prospect of booty. 
It was customary to send for them in all emergencies. 



THE PANTHEON AT MECCA. 135 

Such were the inhabitants of Arabia who had lived for ages 
without being enslaved or without being able to found an 
empire of any note. So they continued until the close of the 
sixth century of the Christian era. Then a remarkable revo- 
lution occurred. It did not arise from the wars or quarrels 
of kings, nor was it, so far as the original actors were con- 
cerned, a revolution springing from accumulated tyranny. 
What, then, made this poor wandering robber of the desert a 
builder of cities and a founder of empires? 

Mahomet was born at Mecca, A. D. 569. He announced 
himself as the Prophet of God in 622. At the time of his 
advent every species of religion, superstition and irreligion 
flourished in Arabia. Its ancient history is wrapped in some 
little obscurity, for it was the policy of Mahomet and his suc- 
cessors to prevent any recurrence to its past religion or history. 
All before Mahomet's time is spoken of as " the time of ignor- 
ance." In the time of ignorance they had some pretty 
elaborate forms of religion. The oldest, as far as known, was 
the Sabean or worship of the Magi. They worshiped or used 
as symbols the sun, the moon and the great planetary bodies. 
They drew horoscopes, ascertained the stars under which 
people were born, and were devout believers in planetary in- 
fluences ; astrology and theology were there allied. 

Before the Christian era, as Diodorus informs us, the 
Sabeans had a famous temple at Mecca, which was revered by 
all the Arabians. In fact, pilgrimages were made to Mecca 
long before the time of Mahomet. The Caaba, or temple, had 
then, as the temple at Medina has now, a black stone that was 
reverently kissed. The old temple, as several of the ancient 
authorities inform us, was a sort of pantheon. It was said to 
contain three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions and 
antelopes, and among these the statue of Hebal, of agate, hold- 
ing in his hand seven arrows without heads or feathers, the 
old symbol for divination. It appears to have been a church 
on such a liberal basis that each tribe or individual could get 



136 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

in gods of their own. The tribe of Koreish somehow man- 
aged to get the custody of the Caaba and the care of it came 
down through several generations to the grandfather of 
Mahomet. Besides this heathen worship, the Jews had long 
held foothold in the cultivated and wealthy portions of 
Arabia. Their settlements date, at least from the time of the 
first captivity, and in all probability many of them were there 
earlier. The Arabians and Jews claim original kinship, being 
of the Semitic stock. In spite of this supposed relationship 
by blood, there has long been a jealousy and hatred of the 
Jewish population in Arabia. This chiefly arose from the 
Jews remaining a distinct people, and the fact that they were 
traders and usurers intensified the dislike. After the advent 
of Mahomet the differences became very bitter, for the Jews 
and Christians were the chief elements of resistance to 
Mahomet, and but for his calling in the wandering Arab tribes 
to aid him, their resistance could not have been overcome. 

Although Christianity had taken root among the fixed 
populations of the Arabian peninsula, upon the roving Arabs 
it did not seem to have much influence, and, in fact, its teach- 
ings of peace and good- will toward men and restitution for 
theft, were scarcely likely to be popular among a race of 
habitual robbers. The many gods and doctrine of chance in 
the Caaba, at Mecca, suited them better. Even that religion, 
to all appearance, left them as it found them. 

The causes that lay at the bottom of the wonderful uprising 
and marvelous growth of Mahometanism will always be a 
subject of profound study. A people, who for ages did not 
seem inclined to tolerate a stable or powerful government 
among themselves, at once became the organizers of powerful 
governments over others. Poor, without a revenue to main- 
tain or equip armies, in little more than a century they over- 
ran and conquered two-thirds of the known world. Rome, in 
all her glory, trained to conquest by centuries of trial, did not 
accomplish as much. It is a coarse and vulgar thing merely 



DEMOCRACY OF MAHOMETANISM. 137 

to conquer; these Saracens, as they were styled, did more. 
They organized governments and founded empires. To these, 
moreover, they gave distinctive ideas. A race whose early 
traditional law forbade them to build houses, founded an 
architecture the ruins of which still excite the admiration of 
the civilized World. Its ideas inspired communities of men 
with new forms of law, religion and government, and though 
there may be much we must condemn, it would be unfair to 
deny that it improved the condition of many of the peoples 
whom it affected. It has long been on the wane, and Christen- 
dom complacently contemplates its coming overthrow ; but still 
in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa it is not without influence, 
and it is estimated that in different nations, even to-day, not less 
than a hundred millions of people, twice the population of the 
United States, accept the Alcoran and look devoutly to the tomb 
of Mahomet. 

For what did this system commend itself to the children 
of men ? What are its inherent merits and vices ? How did 
it affect the happiness and prosperity of the toiling masses ? 
How did it affect the interests of labor ? What land system 
did these conquerors, who had no land in their own country, 
foster or plant in the governments they builded? What 
effect has it had on the interests of common people in the 
past, and what is its influence on the interests of humanity 
to-day ? It has been said that the strength of Mahometanism 
lay in its democratic principles ; that men had been enslaved 
by the patriarchal system ; that the elder put his feet on the 
necks of his younger brethren, and was an absolute monarch, — 
in fact, absorbing what little property there was, and holding 
even the power of life and death. The destruction of this 
aristocracy was said to be involved in the principles Mahomet 
inculcated, although an open war on the patriarchal state was 
not made. Of course, this new system opened the door to the 
enterprise of every man, as there was no provision for an 
aristocracy. The Mahometan laws of inheritance divided 



138 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

equally between all the sods, but the females were degraded 
to dependent position. 

The first five successors of the Prophet were elected; 
founding an hereditary monarchy was certainly foreign to 
Mahometan ideas. The sixth caliph, by intrigue and force 
of arms, overthrew Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet. This 
schism played an important part in the subsequent history of 
the Moslem. The Koreish chief Moawijah, first an enemy 
and then a convert of Mahomet, became an active leader of 
the new faith, and before Mahometanism was half a century 
old, converted an elective theocracy into an absolute monarchy, 
and founded the dynasty of the Ommiades. 

In judging the governments founded by the believers in 
the Koran, it is well not only to read the book but to exam- 
ine the circumstances by which these leaders were surrounded. 
The Koran itself has been loaded with so much of the super- 
natural and miraculous, that it is difficult to extricate the real 
principles it contained from the incredible fictions with which 
it is encumbered. It is generally admitted that a, great deal 
of the more mystical and miraculous portions were added 
long after it was first written. Mahomet, in composing the 
part of it he wrote, was not ignorant of the Bible or the 
Testament ; in fact, he recognized both these books. He em- 
bodied no inconsiderable portion of their precepts. The 
points on which the Koran differed from Judaism and Chris- 
tianity constituted Mahometanism, — what were these ? 

Christianity had existed six hundred years. At that time, 
many even in the Christian Church who accepted its morals 
and its doctrine in the main, rejected the divinity of Christ. 
Mahomet promulgated the doctrine, " There is but one God, 
and Mahomet is his prophet." He did not claim divinity 
himself, and he admitted that Christ and the great lawgivers 
of the Jewish Church were teachers sent from God. He 
seemed to comprehend the necessity of a law that should have 
the sanction of Divine authority : hence his account of the 



MOSLEM PROHIBITION. 139 

miraculous transmission of the Alcoran to him. He rejected 
the doctrine of sacrifice. The Prophet, and afterward the 
Caliph or vicar of God, officiated in the Mosque and taught 
therein. There was no priestly order as such. The Muezzin, 
who called to prayer, was merely a convenience, and all other 
services were supposed to be best performed by the worshiper 
himself. If performed by others, no significance Avas attached 
to the exercise of such duty. Florian informs us that at first 
the Mahometans had neither altars, pictures nor place of wor- 
ship. They have a sabbath of one day for rest and religious 
instruction. This they borrowed from the Jews and Chris- 
tians. They selected Friday, and in time it became customary 
for the caliph to go to the Mosque and pray like other be- 
lievers, and then address the congregation on their religious 
duties or duties to the state. Among the more pious Mussul- 
men, prayer for temporal blessings was not approved. They 
could pray, however, for the prosperity of their country or 
success of their cause, and for confusion to all unbelievers. 

Rigid temperance was a cardinal feature of the Mahometan 
system. It was not original with the founder of the religion, 
for, as we have said, it had long been a law with the Arabi- 
ans. Mahomet inculcated abstinence from intoxicating liquor 
as a religious duty ; the extreme penalty of death was modi- 
fied; a man is publicly whipped for drinking, even if he 
does not get drunk, and drunkenness is punished with the 
bastinado.* A man who uses intoxicating liquors at all is 
not considered a good Mussulman ; if he persists in it, he is 
treated as a reprobate. In the early and purer days of the 
system, all narcotics and intoxicants were included in this 
prohibition. By the Alcoran and the teachings of the purest 
believers strict temperance in food is also enjoined, and plain- 
ness in clothing. The conqueror of Syria, out of all the 
plunder taken by his followers, only reserved for himself a 
pittance of forty cents per day. Another potent general 
* Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. iv., page 157. 



140 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

who had overthrown kingdoms, rode from city to city on a 
brown camel, with a skin bottle of water, a bag of barley, 
and a wooden vessel from which to eat. Self-denial, hard- 
ship, freedom from pride and avarice were insisted upon. Pil- 
grimages to Mecca were enjoined in the subsequent teachings 
of the church, but were not demanded. Mecca, the sacred 
city, and Medina, the burial place of the Prophet, remained 
but for a short period the seats of empire. The Koran allows 
pilgrims, and the faithful generally, during the journey, to 
make an increase of their substance by trading. This system 
of pilgrimage was doubtless copied after the visits of the Jews 
to Jerusalem ; one important principle was hostility to usury, 
and law and custom denounced the usurious profit of capital. 

The Alcoran and all the subsequent teachings of the faith- 
ful enjoined a constant and liberal charity. Giving of alms 
was one of the first duties of the true believers. The theory 
of the zakat, or tax, is that it is a voluntary gift. Contribut- 
ing for the needs of the state followed in the course of time, 
and became obligatory. These taxes, or zakat, amounted by 
law to two and a half per cent, of the principal of certain 
assessed property. If he desired strictly to accomplish the 
law, the true believer was required to give in all a tithe of 
his increase.* As the Mahometan law became systematized 
the tax varied. The term zakat, in its primitive sense, means 
" purification," and was an enjoined contribution for the use 
of the poor. When it grew into taxes, zakat was not due 
from property until the owner possessed it for one year. The 
property of maniacs and children was not taxed. It was not 
enforced where a man's debts equalled his property, f The 
tax was levied on fixed property. Zakat was not due unless 
a man owned five camels; for that number the annual tax was 
a goat. The tax was not due unless a man owned thirty kine, 
then the tax was a year old steer or heifer. Zakat was not 

* Crichton's History of Arabia, vol. i., page 295. 
f Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 4. 



LAND TENURE. 141 

due unless the person taxed owned forty goats, then the 
annual tax was one goat. On horses the tax was "five 
deeners per cent, on the total value." On all other property 
or money values the tax was two and a half per cent.* Upon 
everything produced from the earth, a tithe or tenth was due, 
with one exception ; if land required watering, land near a 
river paid a tithe, land watered by hand, only half a tithe. 

The Arabs of the desert did not practice agriculture. As 
a pastoral people they rove over a country common to all. 
Contests often occurred about springs or wells, and the only 
rule that seems to govern the possession is force. The Arabs 
knew little about land. Observing the agriculturists in the 
valley of the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Nile, they despised 
them as the slaves of the kings and satraps, who drained their 
substance from them. With the roving Arabs it was a vice 
to cultivate the soil. Among the stationary tribes of Arabia, 
subdivisions of the soil were adopted, f These were the people 
in Arabia Felix. The latter were composed, not only of the 
tribes of Ishmael, but Jews, Christians, Ethiopians and 
Phoenicians. In one case it is mentioned that a bush marked 
the boundaries of two districts, and that a hereditary estate 
was measured by the distance you could hear the barking of 
a dog. It is evident that among the best of these people land 
laws were in a crude state. Mahomet had the Bible, and 
knew what the Jewish land laws were perfectly. He did 
not copy them into the Alcoran. In his time the dominions 
of the faithful did not extend beyond Arabia. He induced 
the roving Arabs to help him to conquer Arabia Felix. That 
was the great effort, in accomplishing which, his life closed, 
he being poisoned by a Jewess. 

To some extent the Mahometans accommodated themselves 
to the customs and laws of the countries they overran. Their 

* Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 25. 

f Crichton's History of Arabia, vol. i., page 157. 



142 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

land policy, what there was of it, scarcely applied to Arabia. 
In their conquests they only disturbed rights in land for 
public uses, and from the rest exacted tithes. At first they 
did not tolerate unbelievers under any circumstances, or, at 
least, adopted that as their public policy. All land occupied 
was subject to the zakat of tithes, and, as one-tenth was con- 
siderably less than the rulers overthrown by the Mahometan 
conquerors usually exacted, the cultivators of the soil were to 
that extent better off. In the main, the Saracenic leaders 
permitted the people they found in possession of land to 
retain it, especially if they embraced the doctrines of Ma- 
homet. All unoccupied land in the countries they overran 
they held to be conquered territory, and gave inducements to 
any one to settle and improve it, giving them for doing so a 
continuous tenure in the land, or an occupancy title.* Tithes 
from the produce had to be paid. 

Among the elements that are supposed to have aided in 
building up the Moslem power were the laws allowing polyg- 
amy and the rewards derivable from conquest. Those 
European historians who are disposed to make the most 
charitable exhibit for Mahometanism claim that polygamy 
was almost universal in Asia. That it existed long before 
the time of Mahomet; that he merely accommodated himself 
to the circumstance, and that the tendency of the Koran was 
rather to check the evil. It is difficult to see how such an 
opinion can be maintained. It is true that polygamy has 
been an Asiatic vice as long as we have any record, but even in 
Asiatic countries it never attained prominence or grew into great 
proportions until the rise of the Mahometan power. Sir Henry 
Sumner Maine, says : " The people of the Aryan race are 
monogamous and exogamous, that is, they have one wife, and 
have a large list of persons they cannot marry. The Mussul- 
man whose ideas originated with the Semitic race, are, on the 

* Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 167. 



MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 143 

other hand, polygamous and endogamous, that is, he has a 
plurality of wives, and his law permits near relations to 
marry.* Maine says it has been noticed by good observers 
that this comparative liberty of intermarriage was one secret 
of Mussulman success. In India it offered a bribe to the 
convert by offering him relief from the rigid Brahmin ical 
law.f Mahomet did more than tolerate polygamy : he 
openly encouraged it. The Koran says: "Ye may marry 
whatsoever women are agreeable to you, two, three or four." 
In the compendium of Mahometan law we find : " A man 
may marry four women, free or slave, any beyond that num- 
ber is unlawful." J A slave was permitted to have two wives. 
Among the faithful there was no particular limit to concu- 
bines. The worst vice of Mahometanism was that it deified 
licentiousness. Even Heaven was represented as a place of 
sensual delight. Home, in its highest and purifying sense, 
did not exist. Woman was impoverished and degraded. 
Their ceremonies of marriage had neither dignity nor sacred- 
ness. Two witnesses were required in order to make it 
strictly according to the Mahometan law, but the rule was 
not universally followed. The most lax systems of divorce 
were tolerated. Nothing could show their domestic tyranny 
more conclusively than that the husband should be able in 
a few words to pronounce his wife divorced. 

There are three kinds of divorce known to Mussulmen ; 
first, the "most laudable," second, "laudable" and third, 
" irregular " ; all are conclusive. § The first of these is when 
a husband utters the sentence of divorce once. This separates 
them, but if not repeated after the end of a period, he may 
re-marry the woman without incurring reproach. By the 
second form, he utters the three sentences at regular periods of 
time, or " Tohrs." The third form is when the husband utters 

* Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 235. t Ibid. 

J Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 88. \ Ibid. 



144 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

the three sentences at once. He says, " You are divorced," 
or " Your business is in your own hands," or he condenses the 
three sentences, and says, adding to either, " Count," "count." 
If a separation takes place, the wife has the custody and care 
of a young child until it is able to eat and care for itself, then 
it is under the authority of the father. The Prophet said, 
" Every divorce is lawful except that of a boy or a lunatic." 
A man may marry a female slave, but the offspring do not 
share in the inheritance with the other sons. A woman who 
is an adult may marry Avithout the consent of her guardian, 
but, as a usual thing, a woman has but little authority. She 
is contracted in marriage without her volition, is dependent 
all her life, and is not among the recognized heirs of her 
father's estate. In some of the conquered countries, where 
the rights of women had been respected, she was allowed 
half a son's share, but in strictly Moslem countries her prop- 
erty rights and her existence were merged, first in her father, 
and then in her husband. While the doctrines of polygamy 
may be said to have been firmly established in Arabia, Tur- 
key, Persia, Egypt and Central Asia, the conquerors failed to 
establish it to any considerable extent in India and some other 
countries supposed to be at one time Mahometan. This vio- 
lation of nature has recoiled on the Mahometan system, and 
is one of the chief causes of its overthrow. Such homes as 
the Moslem law and custom made can never permanently 
build up a great progressive race. The degradation of woman 
will, in the end, produce the degradation of man. 

The other element of strength to Mahomet and his followers 
was the war of conquest. The world was then full of adven- 
turers ready to follow any standard to power and plunder. 
Teeming multitudes, born under the most adverse circum- 
stances, were constantly swarming from the deserts of Arabia. 
Like the locusts which came from the "wilderness," where 
there seemed to be no green thing, they darkened the air by 
their untold hosts. The shepherd kings who conquered 



SPOILS TO THE VICTOR. 145 

Egypt were the spawn of this seemingly barren region. 
Twice, at least, all Northern Africa had been overrun by them 
before the time of Mahomet. Many circumstances had con- 
spired to produce a great population in Arabia a few genera- 
tions before the time of the prophet. Warlike Greek and 
Roman armies no longer marched past her, bent on the conquest 
of the world. The Chaldean and Babylonian had passed 
away, and the Syrian and Persian empires were broken. 
Jerusalem was a ruin on a hill. Times had changed. Over 
what was left of the Greek and Roman empires, Christianity 
had settled, and was endeavoring to lead a long enslaved and 
besotted people by its teachings into the doctrines of peace. 
Few enemies harassed the Arabs. Commerce was rich and 
flourishing; the Arabic hosts were ready to swarm. 

It was no small inducement to offer a race of profes- 
sional robbers the conquest and plunder of the world, and to 
lead them to the task inspired by a fanatical sense of religious 
duty. They had the elements of power; Mahomet gave 
the inspiration. They had no organization, and he organized 
them. Every active man amongst them hoped to become 
a prince. The civilized world was then weak. At the 
sieges of Antioch and Damascus the Arabs were reviled for 
being a despised and beggarly race, who tied a starvation 
belt around their waists and lived on barley. On the death 
of Mahomet, his successor, Abubeker, had first the task of 
reducing the rebels. They had refused to pay the zakat, 
and those of them who could be reached were crushed and 
punished. Several new pretenders arose and wrote modified 
versions of the Alcoran, but were overthrown. Having 
established the authority of the caliphate at Medina, he sent 
for the chiefs of the Arabs. An army flocked to Medina 
and were not slow to remind this apostle vicar that they 
wanted rations.* He would have preferred to wait for a 



* Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 167. 
13 



146 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

larger force, but it was "go" or "mutiny," and lie sent 
them out for the conquest of Syria. The commander sent 
the greater part of the first spoils from a fallen city to the 
caliph at Medina, who distributed them, and this procured 
plenty of recruits immediately. The Moslem doctrine, that 
"to the victor belong the spoils," allured to their standard 
unscrupulous adventurers from all parts of the earth. 

It is not desired, in this chapter, to give a detailed history 
of the conquests of the Saracens. In an incredibly short 
period they overran Syria, the greater part of Asiatic Greece, 
Egypt and Northern Africa. The caliph kindly enjoined his 
generals to be just and even indulgent to all who professed 
the faith. They demanded that the conquered should embrace 
Islamism, but they often compounded for a nominal acqui- 
escence and the payment of tribute. This soon swelled the 
revenues of the caliph and his deputies, and the amounts 
received seem almost beyond credence. A large portion of the 
world at the feet of these semi-barbarous conquerors furnished 
the money to carry on military operations. Spain was invaded 
and finally conquered from the Goths. Mahometanism was 
carried into India and even China. The dynasty of Ommi- 
ades, seated at Damascus, gave law from the Ganges to the 
Pillars of Hercules. With the increase of wealth and power 
came refinement. The scholars of all nations were encouraged 
to come to the court of the caliph. In Spain, as elsewhere, 
the Saracen rulers encouraged intermarriages with the con- 
quered people. In Northern Africa, before the Moslem 
conquest, two races, both of Asiatic origin, occupied the country, 
the Berbers and the Moors. The former were the oldest 
occupants ; they were or had been allied or mixed with the 
Carthaginians. The Moors and the Berbers were enemies. 
Christianity mixed with Paganism existed among them. The 
Moors, who were of Arabian blood, naturally fused with the 
Mahometan conquerors. Not so, the Berbers, who were never 
altogether subdued. When the Saracenic armies were present 



SLAVERY AND WILL MAKING. 147 

they would submit, pay tribute aud accept the Koran ; but 
when the armies left, went back to their old ways and their 
old religion. To punish them, severe examples were made 
and a fortified city built some thirty-five leagues from the site 
of Carthage, called Kairwan.* 

Slavery was one of the curses of the Moslem govern- 
ments. Like polygamy, it had existed before Mahomet's 
time; but in founding his religion, instead of uttering teach- 
ings and laws against it, he systematized and made it worse. 
Nor was it confined to the slavery of an alien or despised 
race. Slaves of every hue and from every clime filled the 
Saracenic and Turkish bazaars. Even in these modern times, 
when slave trading has been outlawed in Christian countries, 
one of the few slave markets left is under the shadow of the 
crescent. In the earlier days of Mahometanism, the faithful 
were enjoined not to enslave a believer, but this distinction 
was not maintained. The prophet recommended the manu- 
mission of slaves as a charitable act. The closest relations 
existed between the slaves and their masters. The child of a 
free woman was free even if her husband was a slave, and the 
child of a slave mother was a slave even if its father was free.f 
The marriage of a male or female slave is not lawful with- 
out the owner's consent. A slave was sometimes permitted to 
carry on business, on giving his master a share of his 
profits. 

Mussulmen are not agreed on the question of the power to 
make a will. Acting under more modern inspiration, one set 
of Mahometan lawyers hold that limited wills are lawful; the 
more rigid hold that they are not lawful, and that the attempt 
to dispose of property by will is an attempt to dispose of a 
thing after the title has become void in the proprietor. J Even 
under the constructions that permit of will making, a bequest 

* Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 349. 

| Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 436. J Ibid., vol. iv., page 467. 



148 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

of more than one-third of the property is not valid, while a 
will made in favor of part of the legal heirs is not valid with- 
out the consent of other heirs.* In many Mahometan coun- 
tries, especially in Hindostan, it has been customary to dedicate 
houses, lands and other fixed as well as movable property, for 
the use of the poor and the support of religion. While the 
Moslem law cut off women, in India and other countries 
overrun by Mahometans, the separate rights of property of 
women had to be recognized ; but the Mahometan lawyers 
have steadily opposed and tried to reduce the "Stridhan," or 
female separate property, even there, f By the Koran, Ma- 
hometan traders are exempted from paying impost duties in ex- 
cess of 2 J per cent. The want of a good land system, affording 
proper tenure and thus building up an independent agricultural 
population, was one of the sources of Mahometan weak- 
ness. Their governments were only held by taxation, and 
where plunder ceased to offer sufficient inducements to military 
adventurers, their power soon crumbled. From the time of 
the overthrow of Ali, Mahomet's son-in-law, factions divided 
the state. Finally, the descendants of the family of the 
prophet planted the dynasty of the Abbassides on the Tigris, 
and the caliph of Bagdad became the rival of the caliph of 
Damascus. The Ommiades had been popular in Syria, but 
never very acceptable to the Arabians. It is needless to follow 
the feud or recount the frightful massacre of the Ommiades. 
The dynasty of the Abbassides encouraged learning more than 
the court at Damascus. One caliph of Bagdad was reproached 
for putting a Christian at the head of his educational system. 
Men of learning of all nations were encouraged at Bagdad. 
If slavery had been forbidden a happier day might have 
dawned on the toiling people of the Tigris and Euphrates. 
The rulers were perhaps as good as any that region ever had, 

* Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. iv., page 470. 

f Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 333. 



LUXURY AND DECAY. 149 

but they were aliens. Between luxury, effeminacy and slavery 
the fabric finally crumbled to decay. 

It is a mistake to suppose that learning or intellect will 
supply the place of virtue, temperance, and the vigor that 
comes of an active and useful life. With ample resources of 
wealth the caliphs required slaves, not freemen, to do their 
bidding. They drafted their slaves into a standing army. 
These were largely Turcomans, a Tartar race that had 
conquered and occupied Armenia A. D. 760. They were 
active, restless, brave, and gave the Saracens a great deal of 
trouble. The caliph had now an army of paid troops his 
slaves ; alas, they soon became his masters ! They made and 
unmade caliphs. More than one commander of the faithful, 
when he became obstinate, or attempted to control these hire- 
ling soldiers, was bowstrung, and a more complaisant sover- 
eign placed upon the throne, and the Saracen empire, that 
still gave law to a large portion of the world, became the 
creature of slaves. It is not at all surprising that the Turco- 
mans finally invaded an empire at once so rich and so effem- 
inate. Of an accommodating spirit, the new conquerors 
adopted the religion of Mahomet or what passed for it. 

From A. D. 630 to 1 453, Constantinople remained in the 
hands of those who were at least nominally Christians. It 
resisted the Saracens in A. D. 675, and again in A. d. 718, 
when the first fresh wave of Saracen conquest was vainly 
expended upon it. The Arabians, with all their activity and 
vigor, were not to conquer it ; but the new dominant race of 
Turks had reinforced the now languid and effeminate Sara- 
cens, and after a desperate attempt in 1453, Constantinople 
fell after a fifty-three days' siege by the sultan Mahomet II. 
The Turks had now both spiritual and temporal power, the 
sultan being commander of the Faithful. Genghis Khan 
finished the last vestige of Saracen power at Bagdad. At the 
very time the Turks were pressing their armies around Con- 
stantinople, the brilliant fabric of Saracen power and genius 



150 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

was being overthrown in Spain, and thirty-nine years after 
the downfall of the empire founded by Constantine, in the 
same year that Christopher Columbus discovered the Amer- 
icas, 1492, Grenada fell, and the last of the Moorish kings 
was driven from the Spanish peninsula. 

It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of Mahometan- 
ism on the world's history. Its warlike operations and its 
exactions of tribute we can estimate ; it is harder to weigh 
justly the mark it has left on our own civilization. The wars 
of the Crusades and fierce centuries of war under other names, 
between the Crescent and the Cross, convulsed European 
nations. There were wars of ideas and social systems, rather 
than a war of nations. When Charles Martel defeated their 
approach to France and Germany, he merely expressed the 
purpose of the European people of that time, as did John 
Sobieski when he drove them back from the walls of Vienna. 
Mahometanism had become purely autocratic. It rested on no 
large body of aristocrats, and for this reason her monarchs Avere 
splendid, for they absorbed everything. They established 
slavery of all kinds, and were enslaved by it. They robbed 
mankind more systematically than mankind had ever been 
robbed before, and perished from a surfeit of the spoils. 

The Moslem religion changed its character. Reformers 
arose and tried to turn the people back to a frugal, temper- 
ate life. Predestinarianism was one of the old sheet anchors 
of the original fatalist Saracen faith, but sects arose contend- 
ing for free will. The more startling reformation was that 
of the Wahabees, who sprung up about the beginning of 
the eighteenth century. This, like the ancient religion, 
emanated from Arabia, and endeavored to reform the empire 
founded by the Turks. They declared against all the orna- 
ments in churches, figures, or anything pertaining to idolatry 
which the Wahabees claimed were innovations foreign to the 
faith. They insisted on the ancient rigid temperance ; even 
tobacco and opium were proscribed. Many of the old simple 



DISSENTERS AND REFORMERS. 151 

practices had, as they believed, gone into disrepute, and forms 
had taken the place of the zealous fanaticism that founded 
the empire. They said the religion taught by Mahomet had 
become utterly corrupt, and unauthorized portions inserted in 
the Koran. They even deprecated the worship at the shrine 
of the Prophet, or the attempt to represent him as possessing 
miraculous powers. Mahomet, they held, was but a mortal, 
and though charged with a divine mission, he was only a 
prophet, and that all men were equal before God. Take it 
all in all, there was nothing particularly vicious in the doc- 
trines of the Wahabees, but two causes brought them to 
trouble. The sultan of Turkey, after the authority of the 
Turcomans had been properly settled, assumed beside his 
temporal powers the function of commander of the Faithful. 
He was the head of the church, as well as the state. In a 
despotism like the Turkish government, it is hardly to be 
supposed that its head would acquiesce in the claims of a new 
pretender to subvert its institutions. The innovations which 
had been made on Mahometanism were generally profitable 
ones. They concerned great interests in the church and state. 
All the men of good position and means objected to the 
professed reforms, as such people usually do to any reforma- 
tion or change. Whatever Abdul Wahab, or anybody else 
might think, changes were dangerous. The men proposing 
them were fanatics. Mihidis, or " Mahdis," " Directors of 
the Faithful/ 7 were always arising. They were liable to rise as 
often as any one supposed he had a divine mission, or could get 
any number of persons to believe it. There had been one in 
the ninth century who had given a good deal of trouble, and 
a good many more, small and great, came after him. The 
wealthy, powerful and comfortably-established persons in the 
empire, whatever they might be inclined to believe in a theo- 
retical way, set their faces like flint, against all these innova- 
tions, as there was no telling where they might lead. If the 
personal worship of Mahomet, as a god, had crept in and been 



152 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

established for a few hundred years, these classes, whatever 
their private opinions, would have resisted to the uttermost 
all attempts to interfere with it. The other cause for opposi- 
tion from the Sultan was, that this movement of the Waha- 
bees, in Arabia, looked like a race jealousy, to seize the 
control of the Mahometan religion from the Turks. After 
a century of trouble, and no small amount of bloodshed, the 
Porte was able, some years ago, to announce the final and 
total overthrow of the Wahabees. It is useless to deny that 
a deep-seated sentiment, impregnated with the ideas set forth 
by the Wahabees, has been scattered broadcast over the Turk- 
ish empire. The Turkish government would have perished 
long ago if several so-called "Christian governments" had 
not been interested in propping it up. 

The Bedouin Arabs have for some time been a merely 
nominal portion of the Turkish Church. So long as they 
were well paid for their pains, they were zealous enough, but 
now the Turks, who have the responsibility of government 
on their shoulders, are compelled to make some effort to check 
these marauding bands, and the latter are not particularly 
interested in either the church or the state. " The religion 
of Mahomet was not intended for us," they say. Referring 
to its requirements for frequent washings or cleansing by 
water, they add : " We have no water in the desert, how 
can we. make ablutions ? We have no money, how can we 
give alms ? The fast of Ramadan is a useless command to 
persons who fast all the year round. If God is everywhere, 
as the books say, why should we go to Mecca to adore him ? " 
The fatal weaknesses of the church of Mahomet were funda- 
mental. While Christianity proclaimed doctrines of peace, 
Mahometanism proclaimed war. Military plunder and high- 
way robbery, as avocations, are in a decline, and, with them, 
Mahometanism. Mahomet, although his success in life was 
due to his wife, degraded women, and this undermined all the 
governments founded on his ideas. They had no land polity, 



CONDITION OF THE WORKING PEOPLE. 153 

and did not build up healthy communities. They cling to 
slavery, when all the rest of the world are setting their faces 
against it. 

In estimating the effects of Mahometanism on the happi- 
ness of mankind, the proper way is to see in what condition 
it found the nations it touched, and the situation in which it 
left them. Arabia, independent of the spoils it obtained, was 
not improved by it at any time. Egypt, for a while, rallied 
under its influence, for it had long suffered under even worse 
governments. In the first century of Moslem power a canal 
was cut from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and agricul- 
ture and commerce seemed to revive. Egypt, to-day, is in a 
frightful condition. To say that the common people and la- 
borers are poor does not half state the case ; they are deplorably 
wretched. The revenues extorted from them for rent cripples 
industry, and has more than half destroyed the powers of 
production of the richest country in the world. Decaying 
Mahometanism sits on Northern Africa like a nightmare. 
The navies of Christendom prevent the Barbary ports from 
being dens of pirates, but the desert is still the abode of wan- 
dering robbers. No system of independent, honest citizenship 
has been founded. There is no encouragement to settle down 
to steady husbandry, for a fixed habitation only subjects those 
attempting to have it to the exactions of rulers and the bri- 
gandage of the lawless. In all the Mahometan countries in 
Asia, government and society is in the closing stages of a long 
decline. The condition of the laboring people to-day is one 
of poverty, dependence and hardship. It is even true that 
the people on the Tigris and Euphrates are worse off than the 
denizens of that region were in the days of the Chaldeans and 
Babylonians. Security to the laborer does not exist. The 
Mahometans found them an oppressed people, and they are 
now more oppressed. In the ancient Greece of Asia and 
Europe, which is largely the modern Turkey of to-day, the 
condition is but little less deplorable. An independent, 



154 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS. 

manly body of citizens is not to be found. In spite of the 
splendors of the first three centuries of the Saracenic rule, 
the countries conquered have never since been prosperous. 
Part of Greece has escaped the political dominion of the 
Turk, but has not yet been able to rise above the Moslem in- 
fluence of centuries. The European countries, formerly under 
Mahometan rule, which are now nominally Christian states, 
are the lowest in the scale of civilization in Christendom. 
Spain is the last of these states to listen to the demand for the 
abolition of slavery. 

The spirit that made Mahometanism the enemy of aristoc- 
racy has long since been lost in a government of petty satraps, 
deputies and janizaries. In no part of the world is official 
life more corrupt. Public offices have long been shamelessly 
sold for presents or cash. The amounts paid for some of the 
most lucrative of these places is almost incredible. A vacancy 
is a godsend to a sultan or a pacha. The new incumbent not 
only pays to get in, but he well knows that he must pay to 
keep in. A Turkish ruler soon forgets the officer who does 
not remind him of his existence by valuable presents. Power 
thus shamelessly bought is exercised with heartless rapacity. 
The people are pitilessly robbed, and there is no means 
among them to build up popular organization and power. 
The aristocrats of Northern and Western Europe, as they 
listen with alarm to every advancing footstep in the march of 
human progress, can compare with pride their condition to that 
of Mahometan countries, where in one-third of the world 
human rights hardly exist, and, boastful of their position, 
call all reforms the effervescent froth of an agrarian rabble. 

We may be amazed at the rapid decline of a religion once 
so powerful, but our surprise must be greater that human 
reverence for the Mahometan idea of the divine should so 
enslave the judgment, that a hundred millions of people yet 
accept its teachings, and that at the call of the Muezzin vast 
hosts still fall prostrate in prayer, with their faces to Mecca. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LAND AND LABOK IN KUSSIA AND ASIATIC COUNTEIES. 

Chattel title to land unknown— Struggles of Turanian and Tartar — Central 
Asia rendered a desert by misgovernment — Rents and grazing taxes — 
Tartar greenbacks — India the seat of allodial title and village govern- 
ment — Emperors, kings, warriors and corporations, merely organized 
robbers — Tax collecting the chief feature of imperialism — The British 
attempt to plant landed aristocracy in India — Lord Cornwallis — From 
Yorktown to Bengal — Sale of land for debt formerly unknown in India — 
Land speculation introduced — "Mutiny" — China and "cheap labor" — 
Dense population — Chinese land tenure — Hung Ki — Bate of rent — No 
landed aristocracy — Banks in China — Paper money — Pawnbrokers — Se- 
cret societies — Rates of interest — Civil service reform — Opium vs. whis- 
key — Russia a network of colonies — Great and Little Russia — The Mir — 
The vetche — The village commune — Land systems of Eastern and Wes- 
tern Europe compared — Usurpations of the Tzars — Overthrow of popular 
rights and government — Recent attempts to liberate Russia from aristo- 
crats and tyrants — Russian politics — Despotism and nihilism. 

The regions referred to in this chapter may be said to em- 
brace half of the tillable lands on the globe. These are worthy 
of especial attention, for two reasons. First, because within 
this immense area there exist modes of land tenure different 
from the systems that have grown up in Western Europe, 
and, second, because in these regions we have almost every 
variety of usufruct land tenure. Fee simple or chattel title 
is almost unknown. Communal title ; holdings by house or 
village communities; land held directly from government 
upon the payment of a land tax ; land from which tribute is 
exacted for the head of a military empire ; all these modes of 
holding land have existed, and still exist in an infinite variety, 
over the immense region which stretches from the Dnieper to 
the Yellow Sea. 

155 



156 ASIATIC TENURES. 

We have already sketched the ancient forms of society in 
that part of Asia lying south and west of the Amu-Daria, or 
Oxus, and our present purpose is to examine the modern con- 
ditions of land tenure as they have been shaped during the 
past few centuries, and as they exist to-day. It has been 
scoffingly said by the Duke of Argyle, in his criticism of 
Henry George,* that in India, where the land is owned by 
the government, "the poverty of the masses is so abject that 
millions live only from hand to mouth, and when there is 
any, even a partial, failure of the crops, thousands and hun- 
dreds of thousands are in danger of actual starvation." 

To this region we invite the reader. This immense conti- 
nent of plains, mountains, valleys, rivers and deserts, has been, 
to a large extent, a sealed book to the people of Europe. 
One great mountain range, the Ala-tagh, has only been known 
to science for fifty years, f The great steppes and plains of 
Central Asia, even where not suitable for agriculture, have 
nourished numerous flocks of horses, cattle, sheep and, toward 
the centre and south, camels. 

Two great races of mankind, differing vastly in their natu- 
ral propensities, energy and ability, divide between them now, 
as they did four thousand years ago, the countries in Central 
Asia.J These were the Iranian and Turkish Tartars. The 
intellectual Iranians, or Persians and Hindoos of the Aryan 
race, occupied the countries from the frontiers of China to the 
Tigris. The Afghans are a people of Aryan descent. The 
features of the people of this race are handsome, the nose 
small and the beard full. The fundamental quality they 
exhibit is a disposition to peaceful occupations, especially 
agriculture. In this they differed from the Semitic nomads 
west of the Tigris, and in Arabia, and toward the Mediterra- 
nean. They also differed from the Tartar, Klapchack, Cos- 

* The Prophet of San Francisco, in Nineteenth Century, for April, 1884. 

f Hutton's Central Asia, page 319. 

+ Hellwald's Russians in Central Asia, page 94. 



CONFLICT OF RACES AND FAITHS. 157 

sack and other tribes north of them. Usually, the Amu- 
Daria, or Oxus, was the line between the Turanian and 
Iranian races.* The latter, indeed, planted their civilization 
in the valley of Sir-Daria, or Juxartes, as well as on the 
Oxus. Ancient Bactria was on the Oxus.f The Tartar and 
Turks, however, often established their authority on the 
Oxus, and on several occasions they crossed that river, and 
did not stop their career of conquest until they reached 
the Persian Gulf. The war between Buddhism and Parsee- 
ism was a struggle, not only of faith, but of races, the Iranian 
against the Turanian.^ Persia, or Bactria, was the original 
and persistent seat of the religion of Zoroaster. The region 
of Central Asia may be said to have been ruined by mis- 
government. It has, in former times, maintained great popu- 
lations^ The ruins of ancient cities are scattered everywhere. 
One authority puts the number of cities of Transoxiana at 
three hundred thousand, but Vambery pronounces this a 
" gross exaggeration. " The productiveness of the country 
was due to the rivers and irrigating canals, which were so 
numerous and extensive as to interfere materially with travel 
and commerce. 1 1 

The great northern regions of Asia and Northeastern Europe 
were the home of nomads, shepherds, hunters and soldiers. 
They consisted of many tribes, from the Mongolian nomads 
on the extreme east to the Cossacks and Kirghiz Kazaks. 
They had no fixed habitations but traveled from place to place 
with their flocks, herds and families. This hardy, active life 
inured them to war and conquest. The most noted conqueror 
of this race was Genghis Khan, who overran Asia, conquering 
China. His chiefs held Bokhara for a century and a half, 

* Vambery's History of Bokhara, page 10. 
f Hellwald's Eussians in Central Asia, page 75. 
% Vambery's History of Bokhara, page 14. 
§ Introduction to Vambery's History of Bokhara, page 34. 
|| Hellwald's Eussians in Central Asia, page 78. 
14 



158 ASIATIC TENURES. 

expelling the Arab rulers from Central Asia. Genghis Khan 
tolerated all the prominent religions, Buddhism, Christianity, 
Mahometanism and Parseeism. A few generations later came 
Timour the Tartar, of the same stock although not of the royal 
family. He began his career by being a robber. At one time 
he had but a handful of followers, and, finally, by intrigue 
and violence, stretched his authority oVer Central Asia. He 
professed to be a Mahometan, but from the description of the 
Spanish traveler, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who visited Samar- 
cand in 1403, it is evident that the variety of Mahometanism 
practiced at his court was not of a very rigid kind. Public 
drinking of wine, in which the monarch, his guests, and even 
the ladies of his court participated, was carried to such an 
extent that public exhibitions of gross drunkenness were 
frequent.* The same authority informs us that most of the 
Mahometan sovereigns of Central Asia died of delirium trem- 
ens. In his day, Samarcand was the great entrepot of trade 
for Central Asia. Silks were brought from China, furs from 
Siberia, spices from India, and various articles from Europe. 
In China, w r hat was left of the dynasty of Genghis Khan was 
overthrown by a Chinese adventurer in 1368, who founded 
the dynasty of Ming. Choo-yuen-chang, its founder, had in 
youth been a commou laborer, then a scullion in the temple, 
then a soldier, and Markham informs us, was "promoted" to 
be a robber captain. From this elevation it appears that he 
was able to reach the throne. 

We gather, from the narrative of the dignified Spanish 
ambassador, some few glimpses of the condition of the people. 
He tells us, that in the deserts of Khorassan the people 
had no dwelling place but tents; they wander winter and 
summer. In the latter season they frequent the banks of the 
rivers and sow their corn, cotton and melons. They also 
raise millet, which they mix with milk, and this constitutes 

* Hakluvt. Markham's Trans. Narrative of Clavijo, page 139. 



TARTAR RENT AND TAXES. 159 

much of their food. In the winter they seek warmer regions.* 
These people were Zagatays or Toorkmans. The "Zaga- 
tays" were a cruel and rapacious race, and made raids 
through Khorrassan and other regions. To be in training for 
these predatory incursions they recruited their horses for a 
month, and haviug sent spies out to find suitable victims would, 
on their report, proceed to the place indicated with the utmost 
rapidity. It has been alleged that they sometimes rode six 
hundred miles in six days. They usually attacked the unsus- 
pecting town or village at daybreak, and the struggle was soon 
over. The people and everything of value were carried off, 
and the prisoners who were not ransomed, after being treated 
with shocking cruelty, were sold in the Turkish slave market 
at Khiva. f These nomads, the Spanish ambassador says, 
spoke a different language from the Persian, and seemed to 
be everywhere. Of another of these bands, the Albares, the 
Spaniard says : " These people possess nothing but their black 
cloth tents and flocks of sheep and cattle and twenty thousand 
camels. They pay the lord (Timour) a yearly tribute of three 
thousand camels and fifteen thousand sheep for the right of 
grazing in his territories." J 

Markham, in his Life of Timour,§ informs us that the rent 
was one-third of the produce of all irrigated land. There 
was, beside this, however, an assessment in addition for the 
water from the canals for irrigation. Any cultivator who 
built a tank or otherwise placed fresh land in cultivation, or 
planted an orchard or trees, had such tracts exempted from 
taxes or rent for the first and second year. The Sassanian 
kings of Persia exacted a tax or rent of one-third of the 
produce. When calamity overtook the crops the cultivator 
was sometimes able to borrow relief from the government. 

* Hakluyt. Markham's Trans. Narrative of Clavijo, page 112. 

t Ibid., page 116. % Ibid., page 107. 

g Hakluyt. Markham's Life of Timour, page 30. 



160 ASIATIC TENUKES. 

In Asia the land tax is the chief source of revenue of all 
governments, good and bad. 

The Hindu kings exacted one-sixth of the produce, and in 
addition a poll tax. Central Asia, we are told by one of the 
most enlightened writers on the subject, "has been the foul 
ditch into which has been emptied all the worst vices of 
Mahometanism added to the vices of the Tartars." 

The land tax in Central Asia was supplemented at all times 
by numberless other exactions, levied to meet the expenses of 
wars or the marriage of a son or daughter of the ruler or tax 
collector. Messengers, troops, escorts and ambassadors, as 
they traveled over the country, were supported by the people. 
Don Gonzalez found that these parties were always pro- 
vided with three times the amount required. The approach 
of such a party to a town was a great calamity. The traders 
shut their shops and fled. The first man met was beaten 
until he conducted them to the chief of the town, who was 
also beaten if he did not promptly furnish all that was de- 
manded. The people had to watch the stock of the visitors 
night and day, and make good a horse or camel if one should 
be lost, and, finally, the orders were to put to death any one 
who should obstruct these proceedings. Our Spanish ambas- 
sador passed through one region freshly abandoned. A 
" lord " had passed with his army, and because provender was 
not furnished, they took all the growing grain. On this 
calamity the inhabitants left the country. 

In addition to the rent and grazing tax these Tartar rulers 
had other sources of revenue. Timour carried away all the 
artisans and good laborers he could find during his raid 
through Eastern Asia, and took not less than one hundred 
thousand of these as slaves to Samarcand. The king had a 
ferry at the Oxus which was closely guarded to prevent the 
escape of these slaves. Any one could enter Transoxiana, but 
no one without a passport could cross it to the south and east. 
Those who were ferried over paid a heavy toll. The khan 



ASIATIC GREENBACKS. 161 

also set up gates, or held the passes to India, Afghanistan 
and China, and all merchants, travelers or others on passing 
paid a heavy tribute. 

Marco Polo and Rubruquis, in their narratives, confirm 
what Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo narrates. The two former told 
so much that was marvelous, that at least one of them, Marco 
Polo, has passed down to our time as a romancer and liar. 
Later investigations have tended to restore his reputation as a 
correct observer. The Venetian traveler visited China during 
the reign of the Great Khan. His description of the paper 
money introduced into China by the Tartar conquerors is 
worthy of note. He describes how the paper on which the 
national notes were printed was made from the inner bark of 
certain trees, and cut into pieces " nearly square, but some- 
what longer than they are wide." These notes are of many 
denominations, some of them very small. He adds : " The 
coinage of this paper money is authenticated with as much 
form and ceremony as if it actually were of pure gold and 
silver, for to each note a number of officers, especially ap- 
pointed, affix their names and signets. When this has been 
regularly done by all of them, the principal officer, deputed 
by his majesty, having dipped into vermilion the royal seal, 
stamps with it the piece of paper, so that the form of the seal, 
tinged with vermilion, remains upon it, by which it receives 
full authenticity as current money." * 

Yambery tells us that Asia, left to herself, produces hardly 
anything. f Her irrigating canals have largely disappeared. 
Some of them in the early times reached one hundred miles 
from the river. Ten years of warlike disturbance is sufficient 
to turn the most fertile region into a desert. The ruins of 
the ancient cities are known by the mounds and heaps of dust 
and sand. 

Hellwald states that the aspiring chief who would »found 

* Wright's Marco Polo, page 216. f History of Bokhara, page 32. 



162 ASIATIC TENURES. 

an empire in Afghanistan, must, as little as possible, limit 
or interfere with the independence of the tribes. They 
are largely an agricultural people, holding their lands and 
governing themselves by the village community system. 
Shere Ali nearly had his throne overturned a few years 
ago, upon his attempting to organize his army on the Euro- 
pean plan. 

An increase of population made a redistribution of land, 
or emigration, necessary, which latter was often instituted by 
the town authorities. The system of allowing individual 
owners or landlords to create a mode of exacting tribute or 
rent from the land, independent of the state, is very obnoxious 
to Asiatic ideas. 

When it is said that land has been nationalized in Asiatic 
countries, a mistake is made. No great government has ever 
risen to develop or elaborate such a policy. The systems of 
land tenure were older than the governments, and were local. 
The town or community regulated its own aifairs, and, so far 
as it was concerned, recognized the rights of every one in the 
community to a share in the lands controlled or occupied by 
them. This was a law or custom among these people. The 
questions that might arise as to the amount of land each should 
occupy, or changes in the occupancy of a family were dis- 
cussed in the town meeting, and had to be satisfactory to all 
concerned. 

It will thus be seen that the governments of Asia were one 
thing, and the land system quite another. If the govern- 
ments had legitimately earned the tax or rent, by affording 
protection, and providing, as they sometimes professed to do, 
a fund to relieve the destitute from calamitous seasons, little 
co m plaint would have been made of them. 

India has always been considered one of the richest and 
most productive empires of the w r orld. Surprise has been 
expressed at the extreme poverty of the people at the time it 
became an appanage of the British government. The Mogul 



EAST INDIA COMPANY. 163 

empire, founded by Baber, in 1519, was tottering to its fall 
before the middle of the seventeenth century. Petty chiefs 
had arisen in every direction, too strong to be controlled by 
his successors. They plundered the people mercilessly. All 
security was at an end. It was in 1658 that Arungzebe de- 
posed his father and murdered his brethren. Four years 
later Bengal was ceded to England by the Portuguese, as part 
of the dower of Caroline, queen of Charles II. The Portu- 
guese had at that time, and long after, a commercial standing 
in the Indian Ocean, and claimed a good deal by right of 
discovery, but could not, in any sense, be said to possess 
Bengal. A company of English merchants had been char- 
tered, in 1600, to trade in India. The French created an 
East India Company in 1664, and both of these corporations, 
not content with mere merchandising, undertook the business 
of colonizing, ruling and conquering. A " war " between the 
English and French companies broke out in 1 746. In this 
war native rulers took part on each side. Native soldiers 
were enlisted by both companies. The French were sub- 
stantially beaten in 1760, and after the battle of Buxar the 
Nabob surrendered the revenues of Bengal, Bahar and Orissa 
to the British East India Company. So far, the people of 
India had been compelled to pay rent to military chiefs, called 
emperors, kings, moguls and nabobs, and now an English 
company, under a British charter, set up a claim to be uni- 
versal landlord in three states, and compelled the natives to 
pay rent. Corporations have done many things in their time, 
but this was, undoubtedly, the crowning act of corporate 
impudence. The company extended its power and increased 
its exactions until parliament became ashamed of its rapacity, 
or covetous of its authority. The British peers and com- 
mons first inquired into its conduct, and then, by Act after 
Act, stripped it of its privileges, " vested rights/ 7 to the con- 
trary, notwithstanding. The impeachment of Hastings was 
political in its character as much as judicial. The trial of the 



164 ASIATIC TENURES. 

governor-general, and investigations by parliament, were 
merely the steps by which that body wrested the empire of 
India from a corporation and made it a colony of the British 
crown. 

Under a tropical sun the inhabitants of the lower peninsula 
seem to be enervated and helpless before every species of 
governmental vagabondism. Violence and war injected 
Buddhism into the ancient Hindu faith. Alexander at- 
tempted to introduce Greek ideas and Greek rulers. By the 
time Mahometanism had reached India, its dogmas and 
morals had gone through so many metamorphoses that its 
founder would hardly have recognized it. Amidst all these 
vicissitudes and changes, the old Aryan system of landholding 
remained. 

Sir George Campbell, for some time commissioner of the 
central provinces of India, complains of the extreme difficulty 
of getting title to land there on account of the complexity of 
both Hindu and Mahometan laws of inheritance. So many 
people have a divided interest in the land, that after a man 
has bought land he is liable to find other owners than those 
from whom he purchased. This merely arose from the fact 
that neither Hindu or Mahometan laws were framed for the 
purpose of selling land. The Mahometan laws of inheritance 
were very different from the Hindu, as the latter give women 
equal rights, and recognize, so far as land is concerned, an 
equal division among all. The variety of Mahometanism in- 
troduced by Baber secured a better collection of the taxes, and 
reduced woman's property one-half, in portions of India. It 
is therefore not singular that Sir George inveighs against 
the difficulty of making a chattel title. The only wonder is 
that he found it possible to make one at all. 

In India the government claims and collects rent or tribute 
from the land. The proportion of grain taken varies from 
one-half to one-fourth, the former being deemed an excessive, 
and the latter a light rent. The most common is about two- 



HINDU VILLAGE. 165 

fifths.* Where irrigation is supplied the share of the culti- 
vator is proportionally less. In each separate community 
there is, by long practice, a fixed rate of charges, and also of 
the fees of collectors, which could not be changed except by 
a very strong government or by revolution. In various in- 
sidious ways the deputy, or local ruler, contrives to squeeze 
the people a little more by encouraging or exacting gratuities, 
or extra fees, on the marriage of his daughter, or any other 
similar event that might seem to furnish an apology for it.f 
Previous to British rule the rent had been commuted to money 
rates.J Hindu, Mahometan and British rulers, alike, claimed 
rent from the soil of India. Sir George estimates that before 
British rule in India the most iniquitous exactions were made 
from the cultivators, especially upon the old residents who had 
made some improvements, such as digging wells and planting 
trees, which they could not move away, and would have to 
abandon in case they ceased to pay rent. These old holders 
of farms had usually the first choice, but this availed them 
little when additional exactions were fastened upon them, 
which they were unable to pay. . Outside of rent to the 
government, the affairs of the people were largely managed 
by themselves. The bond which holds a community together 
is municipal. The arable land is divided, each farm being 
held by the family from its ancestors, provided they pay the 
rent to the government. The waste and grazing lands are 
held in common. When sums of money are received from 
the latter, they go into the common fund.§ A jat village 
consists of a community of freemen of one caste, held tradi- 
tionally together. A village may be subdivided into two or 
three parts, each held by different castes. Every man has 
his share, which is generally ploughed land.|| The commu- 
nity is managed by a council of elders, who rule only so long 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 220. t Ibid., page 221. 

X Ibid., page 222. \ Ibid., page 223. || Ibid. 



166 ASIATIC TENURES. 

as the j retain the confidence of the people. These town or 
village elders conduct all negotiations with the government, 
in point of fact, their relations with the state are chiefly of a 
diplomatic character. The elders mav or may not get a small 
perquisite for their trouble. It must be voluntary as they 
have no means of collecting it. Many republics have been 
served at one time or other by slaves, usually of a race con- 
sidered inferior. These East Indian communities have 
nothing exactly like chattel slavery, but they have usually a 
small body of servile laborers who do not exercise the same 
rights as a village proprietor.* These laborers in many cases 
cultivate a small piece of land, which they hold on the same 
terms as others, or more usually rent from one of the villagers. 
They live by odd jobs, and by assisting at the more laborious 
tasks. They usually consist of those who prefer thus to 
attach themselves to a village where they have no hereditary 
rights. In Cashmere and lower Bengal, the villages have 
less cohesion, and are subject to more changes in their popula- 
tion. Although Mahonietanism has dominated in India for 
several hundred years, the Hindu or Brahminical religion is 
still numerically the strongest. The former was more demo- 
cratic and active, the latter more conservative and exclusive. 
Distinctions in India come from caste and blood rather than 
wealth. 

In the long period of anarchy that occurred between the 
decline of Mahonietanism in India and the rise of the British 
power, a very considerable amount of land had been aban- 
doned by the cultivators, and these ryots, as cultivators are 
termed, were in great demand. An Indian ruler, who is only 
a landlord with limited privileges, depends for his income 
entirely on the number of active producing ryots in his do- 
minions. The breaking up of the Mogul empire turned loose 
a petty set of usurpers, whose wasteful rapacity almost ruined 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 224. 



IMPROVEMENTS NOT A LIEN. 167 

agricultural interests in India. War, famine and pestilence 
had weakened or abolished many of the old villages, and 
many farms had been taken by new cultivators, who claimed 
no hereditary right to the soil. The commons, or unoccupied 
lands, were recognized as part of the heritage of the village 
for pasture and timber. There was no clearly defined law 
giving any right of occupancy to non-proprietary holders, or 
those who do not belong to the village, but there was a dis- 
tinction perfectly understood that where a stranger coming 
among them was permitted to improve a farm, as long as he 
paid his full share of all the burdens borne by the others, he 
should not be disturbed. The distinction was between such 
parties and those who moved about from place to place, culti- 
vating patches of land merely on paying the rent. Questions 
sometimes arose between the old hereditary town proprietors 
and those who had been permitted to settle among them, and 
in cases where it was understood by the town that the occu- 
pation was not to be permanent, great jealousy was created 
where such modern squatters or settlers by digging wells, 
planting trees or making other valuable permanent improve- 
ments, attempted to render it difficult for the town to get rid 
of them if the interests of the community should require it. 
As a usual thing, improvements on the soil, while they are 
held to be the personal property of the man who puts them 
there, gives him no lien on the land, or even continuous right 
to hold it. When, from any cause, the person holding land, 
closed his connection with it, he usually removed all the 
material he had placed upon it which was of sufficient value 
to warrant his doing so, such as the wood-work, matting, 
roofing or other movable parts of the building. This custom 
may have had the effect of preventing the erection of valuable 
permanent houses ; but as evictions are rarely heard of, it is 
more likely to be the result of the predatory and warlike 
habits of the various military governments, which have 
preyed upon, rather than ruled, the Indian peninsula. 



168 ASIATIC TENURES. 

The term ryot, while it is used generally in reference to the 
cultivators of the soil, is not an Indian word, but an intru- 
sive one, from the Arabic, literally, "protected one," and is 
used and applied indiscriminately to cultivators, weavers, 
carpenters and laborers. It is said to resemble the English 
word " subject" ; it also means that they do not belong to the 
government, or official class. The zemeendar, or zemindar, 
was strictly an officer. He was the representative of the 
government which levied the taxes or tribute. It is a Per- 
sian word, and the zemindars had their chief importance 
under the Mahometan rule. 

The few cases of individual proprietorship of land that are 
to be found in India are looked upon with a very unfavor- 
able eye. Public opinion reprobates it as the most fatal 
social or political heresy, and even in their language, the 
term landlord and robber are the same word.* The tendency 
of everything Hindu is to become hereditary ; not a discrimi- 
nating or invidious hereditary claim, to be raised or urged 
against the different members of the family, for their rights 
are all equal ; but the son of a Hindu, by mere birth, becomes 
the partner of his father. The zemindar, as a tax collector, 
came in with the Mahometan rulers, the Hindu mode of col- 
lecting the tax being through the elders of the village. The 
zemindar was not originally a hereditary officer, for there is 
nothing hereditary in the Mahometan system. When the 
Hindu became a zemindar, which was sometimes the case, he 
usually wanted one of his sons to succeed him. In some 
cases such succession was had, but not as a right, for he was 
liable to removal at any moment, and had the extremely diffi- 
cult task of being compelled to satisfy the monarch who 
received the taxes and the ryot who paid them. Farming 
out imposts to speculators was not only unpopular, but 
rarely resorted to ; never, save in the case of a weak ruler. 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 230. 



BRITISH LAND POLICY. 169 

The grade of rent, or tax, had long been fixed, and the 
speculator, in such cases, had to make his profit out of the 
government. All the collectors, or middlemen, whether con- 
tractors, zemindars or governors, were merely agents of the 
government. There was nothing in the positions of the par- 
ties resembling landlord or tenant. Under native rule, the 
rights of the people in the land, whatever they may be, are 
not bought and sold in the market.* When a cultivator 
could not meet his engagements, he might, with the approval 
of the community, make a contract with another party to 
cultivate the land and pay his debts. On repaying all that 
was due under this contract he might be permitted to resume 
his holding, which was, however, at all times, subject to the 
rights of any of his family connection. Seizure and sale of 
land for private debt was wholly unknown.f This idea had 
not entered into the native imagination. % 

Such was the system the British found in India. The 
people had always contributed largely of their substance to 
sustain the government, and had usually been poorly governed. 
Indeed, a thoroughly organized, intermeddling, penetrating 
government, with new local forms, it would have been diffi- 
cult to establish and impossible to maintain. Paying rent 
they were familiar with. They had paid it to native rulers 
w r ho had stretched authority over their country; had 
paid it to Greek, Persian, Turk or Tartar ; why should they 
not continue to pay it to the East India Company, or the 
British government? They, of course, expected that the 
government collecting rents or taxes would be willing to let 
their local affairs alone. The East Indian political expert 
disliked everything that was not British. His whole instincts 
drove him to intermeddle. A few of them, to their credit be 
it said, endeavored to comprehend the Oriental idea of land- 
holding, and even admitted some of its excellencies, but with 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 231. t Ibid., page 232. 

15 



170 ASIATIC TENURES. 

the most of them the system had several great drawbacks, the 
chief of which was that the British had no stable and in- 
terested power in the country that they could lean on. 
Europeans, who wished to become great planters, had no 
adequate way of getting land, and the power to increase the 
revenues whenever the ruler desired was lacking. The idea 
that had been growing up in Western Europe, of land as a 
source of wealth, independent of its tillage, and of power and 
social standing outside of wealth, could not be contented with 
the East Indian system. All the adventurers and speculators 
thirsted for the introduction of modern European chattel 
landholding. One of the most early and noted of British 
East India politicians was Lord Cornwallis. To console him 
for his defeats in the war against the rights of the American 
people, and the humiliation of Yorktown, he was made gov- 
ernor-general of India, in 1786. A short time prior to this, 
after his return from America, he had been, or tried to be, 
viceroy of Ireland. His experience on that island was little 
to his own credit, and still less to the advantage of Ireland, 
so he was translated to the realm from which Warren Hast- 
ings had been deposed. The field before him, while a much 
easier and safer one than the subjugation of the turbulent 
American colonies, turned out to be beset with difficulties 
almost as insurmountable. The British in India at that time 
had hardly encountered the more warlike hill tribes, and the 
Bengalee seemed incapable of protracted resistance, but still 
he clung with the utmost tenacity to his old forms of society. 
That Lord Cornwallis should neither comprehend nor appre- 
ciate the Indian system of land tenure, inheritance and social 
regulations was natural enough. His conception of progress 
and refinement were received from the beautiful homes and 
parks of the British landed aristocracy, and it certainly had 
little in common with the East Indian system. Men of more 
ability than he had turned their attention to Indian politics, 
Hastings was not destitute of ability, and the reputed author 



MONOPOLIES. 171 

of Junius, Sir Philip Francis, was one of the early British 
rulers in India. Lieutenant-Colonel Dow, of the Company's 
service, not only translated from the Persian a history of 
Hindostan, but embraced in it a statement of the errors of the 
" Company and the proposed remedies" for them. The Com- 
pany, not content with its revenues from land, had created 
monopolies in some articles of necessary or universal use. The 
price of salt was raised two hundred per cent, in this way.* 
Tobacco and the betel-nut, generally used, also fell into the 
hands of a monoply. The author of the "Inquiry" states 
that in 1767 the expense of the Bundabust, or yearly settle- 
ment, amounted to twenty-seven and a half per cent, of the 
revenue, which was shared between Mahomet Kiza and the 
bankers of Murshedabad.f He further states that the place 
of the Company's resident at the nabob's court was honestly 
worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year. What 
this functionary really made it yield him it would be impos- 
sible to conjecture. A mode of practically levying a tax on 
the silver coinage was invented by some bankers, at Murshed- 
abad, and the nabob and the British residents did not scruple 
to adopt and continue it. J 

Our scholarly lieutenant-colonel, in his "Inquiry," which 
was intended for the use of the British government, recom- 
mends as to religion "a perfect toleration," and says: "We 
may use the Indians as we can in _ this world, but let them 
serve themselves as they can in the next." He recommends 
the abolition of monopolies and the establishment of a paper 
currency and submits a proposal to establish landed property 
in India. § He asks : " Let, therefore, the Company be em- 
powered by an Act of Parliament to dispose of all the lands in 
Bengal and Behar, in perpetuity, for the payment of an annual 
sum not much less than the present rents." He adds : "Very 



* Dow's Hindostan, vol. i.. dissertation, page 131. 
| Ibid., page 136. | Ibid., page 147. 



Ibid., page 103. 



172 ASIATIC TENUEES. 

extensive possessions in the hands of an individual are pro- 
ductive of pernicious consequences in all countries." He 
therefore suggests a limit as to the amount that could be 
purchased, as not to exceed on any account a rental of " fifty 
thousand rupees a year." Such were the views that led to 
what is called the " permanent settlement " in Bengal in 1793. 
The tax-collecting zemindars were manufactured into land- 
lords. The "preamble" to the form of settlement proves 
that the British administrators were not ignorant of the fact, 
that the zemindars did not own the land. This creation of 
landlords in India was adopted as a fixed policy, and its 
purpose was to establish a landed aristocracy, similar to that 
of England. By these regulations and the code of laws that 
accompanied them, land in Bengal, in 1793, was made trans- 
ferable by sale, and in almost every respect put on the footing 
of chattel property.* A creditor in Bengal was given the 
most summary rights to sell for debt all the interest any one 
had in land, and immediately thereafter great numbers of 
ryots were sold out. It has been sarcastically said of Corn- 
wallis, that he designed to make English landlords and only 
succeeded in making Irish landlords. Indeed, the zemindars 
did not quite comprehend the position into which they were 
thus thrust. At first it was not attempted to very materially 
increase the tribute or rent demanded, and the ryots for 
some time scarcely understood that a fatal blow had been 
struck at their rights and interests. Instead of the nominal 
ten per cent, for collecting tribute, the zemindars were by this 
arrangement to get twenty, and were created lords of the soil. 
It was difficult to introduce the system. It is true, that a 
large portion of these tax collectors did not belong to the 
races over whom it was intended that they should " lord." 
Dow informs us that when he wrote, towards the close of the 
eighteenth century, that the zemindars were mostly Persians, 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 237. 



ARISTOCRACY A FAILURE. 173 

Turks, or men from the upper countries. They had been 
long enough among the people, however, to understand their 
former relations to them, and, in spite of the settlement, per- 
mitted matters to drift on pretty much as they had done 
before, and there seemed to be almost insuperable difficulties 
in the way of this " inchoate " aristocracy. The next step 
was to assume that all of the " unoccupied lands " were the 
property of the British crown. It will be remembered that, 
besides waste lands, there were public and common lands used 
for grazing or timber, but all fell under the same head. It 
was the ostensible purpose of the regulations for these alleged 
"crown lands" to secure their improvement, and some sem- 
blance of occupation and cultivation, but the grossest abuses 
and corruptions at once crept into the sale, and foreign hold- 
ers, mercantile and middle men began to have great estates to 
be cultivated by a dependent class of hired laborers. At first 
the zemindars were prohibited by the terms of the Act of 
Settlement from giving a lease for more than ten years, but 
these restrictions were very soon modified. Bengal is still 
largely Mahometan, and owing to the jealousies between these 
people and the Hinclustanee, the British schemes have had 
some success, although the system even there cannot be said 
to be altogether established. In Oude, the British attempted 
to establish the titles in officers or local nobles called talook- 
dars, but the scheme has not been successful. In the Punjaub 
the aristocratic scheme has failed in a measure, but very 
numerous peasant proprietors have been created. In the great 
central provinces the attempt to make land property has so 
far almost totally failed. In the northwest provinces the con- 
spiracy to plant aristocracy has been but partially successful. 
The old ryots have been forced to accept fixed tenures at 
fair rents. In Assam it has been impossible to introduce 
the zemindars. 

It must not be forgotten, that the British governors of 
India had been all this time receiving great revenues from 



174 ASIATIC TENURES. 

the country. In the northwest provinces, even fifty years 
ago, when the conquered country was not near so great as 
now, they received twenty millions of dollars annually.* In 
Northern India, which is largely Hindustanee, the British have 
been compelled to abandon the perpetuity of land tenure, but 
they have steadily pressed a system of lease with the privilege 
of removals. Proceeding from these changes came attempts 
to induce or force the ryots to raise indigo and opium 
instead of the old products. Indigo and opium, of course, 
were more profitable for exportation, and it was the British 
interest to force their cultivation. This was resisted by 
the natives, because it was found to have a bad eifect on the 
production of bread for their own people. Leases were made 
to compel it by inserting provisions to furnish certain amounts 
of indigo-material and opium with the rent. On the refusal 
to do this, the rents were raised. Courts, however, had been 
introduced, and the cultivator, falling back on the rights of 
his people for ages, carried the case into court, claiming that 
as long as the fixed rent or tribute was paid the rent could not 
be changed. Much has been said of the fairness of British 
rulers in India, but in this scheme to oppress the Indian 
people, Chief Justice Sir Barnes Peacock decided, " That the 
ryots were bound to pay a fair rent in the sense of the highest 
rent attainable, that on the increase in the value of produce 
being shown, there was no limit to the increase demandable, 
but the real profit of the cultivator/' or rack rent. He decreed 
the full amount claimed. The case was carried to the full 
high court of fifteen, who maintained the opinion fourteen 
to one. 

Springing from these insidious encroachments, great land 
leagues have been formed among the people. In some cases 
whole communities refused to pay rent. A constant struggle 
has also been carried on against the attempt to form a landed 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 247. 



MUTINY. 175 

aristocracy. It has been strenuously denied by Sir George 
Campbell and other British rulers, that the insurrection called 
" The Mutiny," in that country, was caused by these English 
land expedients. It is sufficient answer to this, to recall the 
fact, that wherever the British were expelled, and they were 
expelled from great provinces, the landed proprietors they had 
created were expelled with them. In the long career of 
civilized robbery by which alien rulers have exacted enormous 
sums from the native people, the British have probably given 
them many wrongs to remember. There was more than one 
"mutiny." In 1806, there was a Sepoy mutiny at Vellore, 
when eight hundred " insurgents " were executed. Again, in 
1809, at Seringapatam, and so continuing until the terrible 
" Mutiny" of 1857, beginning in Bengal and spreading to the 
remotest provinces. It was not a " revolution," for it was not 
successful. It was not even permitted to be called an insur- 
rection, but stigmatized as a " mutiny " for which the ring- 
leaders were shot from the mouths of cannon. 

Practically, the attempt to found a landed aristocracy in 
India is still but an experiment in Bengal and can scarcely be 
said to exist elsewhere. Although twice under Mahometan 
rule, slavery has never flourished in India to the same extent as 
in other Oriental countries. There has never been a great ser- 
vile class, embracing a majority of the laboring people, which 
would have been the case if the instincts of the people had not 
been against it. The slavery that did exist was abolished by 
the British government in 1834, and the East Indian Company, 
long merely an attendant leech, ceased its connection with 
Indian politics in 1858. 

In spite of the sarcasm of the Duke of Argyle, it would 
not be fair to attribute either the faults or the calamities of 
the East Indian people to their system of land tenure. It 
was, indeed, the one redeeming feature in their unhappy 
lot. To call the tribute or rent exacted by alien tyrants a 
" Nationalization of Land " is the most bitter irony. In all 



176 ASIATIC TENURES. 

the chequered vicissitudes of East Indian history, they had 
at least escaped the additional exactions of a landed aristocracy, 
until the British government has attempted to expose them to 
its burdens and rapacity. 

Until recently the vast empire of China has been almost 
unknown to Europeans, and of its people, institutions and 
history we are still comparatively ignorant. Not including 
the vast territories which have been, and some of which still 
are, connected with the empire, the eighteen provinces of 
China proper contain a population of from three hundred 
and fifty to four hundred millions of people.* For this em- 
pire a great antiquity is claimed, and without giving credence 
to a fabulous chronology enough is known to make it certain 
that it has survived any other government of which we have 
knowledge. The evidence also lends some color to the state- 
ment that China has remained in a comparatively stationary 
condition for a long time. Her forms of society, or what we 
call civilization, while they differ in many respects from 
ours, are, nevertheless, of a high order, and are as far re- 
moved as they well can be from those of nomadic wan- 
derers or barbarians. The worst features presented by 
China are a dense population, much of it existing on limited 
resources. They are a rice- or grain-eating people ; beef is 
little used. Animal food is only eaten at intervals by the 
poorer Chinese. Of the animal food consumed, pork consti- 
tutes more than half.f Chickens, ducks and other fowls are 
eaten ; puppies, kittens, rats, mice and various animated things 
are killed and occasionally eaten. Eish of all kinds con- 
stitute a staple element of food, and fish are produced in 
artificial ponds. The Chinese rarely drink cold water, as 
they consider it unwholesome. Tea and several other prepa- 
rations are used, but coffee, chocolate and cocoa are almost 
unknown, and the same may be said of beer, cider, wine, 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 270. f Ibid., page 777. 



FOOD IN CHINA. 177 

porter, brandy, etc.* It is proper to say that in towns visited 
by Europeans, intoxicating liquors are found. Beef, though 
to some extent eaten by the richer classes, is never exposed 
for sale in public market, chiefly from Buddhistic prejudice. f 
For the same reason, milk, butter and cheese are rarely eaten, 
and a European usually disgusts a Chinese by drinking milk.» 
In all their cooking, oils and fats are a universal article, and 
this renders most of their food unpalatable to an American. 
The proportion of animal food of any kind eaten by the 
Chinese is smaller than with any other nation living in the 
same latitude. Cooke and other authorities agree that drink- 
ing is not one of the sins of the Chinese, but opium debauches 
constitute their worst vice. J They also smoke tobacco, prepa- 
rations of hemp and other things. Physically, the Chinese 
are not so strong as Europeans, but stronger than most of 
the Oriental races.§ Nevius says that nearly all the men, and 
many of the women use tobacco, and that where they have 
been thrown in contact with Europeans they are learning to 
use ardent spirits. || They are not, and so far as any authentic 
records carry us, never have been, warlike. As Williams 
intimates, the Chinese are the beau ideal of a nation devoted 
to the " peace policy." This has led to their being overrun 
and conquered on several occasions by the rude and warlike 
Tartars and Mongols, active, beef-eating nomads, from the 
great plains and mountain regions of Central and Northern 
Asia. These conquering intruders rarely attempted any im- 
portant change in the laws, customs or polity of the Chinese. 
They may be said to have conquered the government rather 
than the people. After a few generations the invaders grew 
so effeminate that they were easily overthrown in their turn. 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 776. 
f Nevius' China, page 246. 
% Cooke's C hina and Lower Bengal, page 172. 
$ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 91. 
|| ISevius' China, page 250. 



178 ASIATIC TENURES. 

Landed property is held in clans and families as much as 
possible.* Land is held directly from the crown, and not 
entailed. If mesne lords or landed aristocracy ever existed 
they are now unknown.f The condition of land tenure is the 
payment of an annual tax. When this is paid, the land and 
its improvements remain in the family. While the paternal 
estate may be nominally ruled by the eldest, his authority is 
subject to the rights and wishes of all the others, as all share 
alike. The only difference consists in a small amount allowed 
to the elder for the performance of purely administrative 
functions.J All of the family have a right to live on the 
estate, and usually do so, the younger sons devise their interest 
in perpetuity to their offspriDg.§ JSTo change can be made in 
this disposition save by some agreement and the payment of 
an amount acceptable to all parties. In case of any aliena- 
tion or transfer, there is a government tax, or charge, in addi- 
tion to the expense of registering. Daughters in ChiDa never 
inherit. 1 1 The proprietors of land record their names in the 
district where they live, and have from the government a 
hung-M, " red deed," which secures them possession as long 
as the tax is paid. For convenience in mortgages and aliena- 
tions, there is a " white deed/' which is from the individual. 
There are sometimes twenty of these, but they are only valu- 
able when accompanied by the "red deed." As the expense 
of any transfer through the government is equal to one-third 
of the rent, these white transfers or mortgages are resorted 
to. To some extent these white and red deeds resemble war- 
rantee deed and patent, the difference being this, that when our 
government executes a patent, it thus, in fee simple, disposes 
of the proprietary interest. The Chinese official " red deed," 
on the contrary, is a family lease rather than a deed. The 
law and custom permits the transfer of these, and the Chinese 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 1. f Ibid. 

X Nevius' China, page 237. 

\ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 2. || Ibid. 



179 

government would issue a fresh hung-ki in every regular case 
of transfer if applied for, provided all the necessary steps to 
secure every interest have been taken. A mortgagee must 
enter upon, pay the taxes and use the property, in order to 
give any validity to his title.* The laws and customs effectu- 
ally prevent several tracts from drifting into the hands of an 
owner not an occupant. A mortgage or alienation can only 
cover the individual rights of those making it, and are always 
subject to the rights of others. In addition, these mortgages, 
or alienations, can be at any time cancelled within thirty 
years, on the payment of the original sum, without interest, 
the party having had the use of the land in the meantime. 
This thirty years is supposed to cover the extent and value of 
the improvements and pre-emptive right which constitute all 
the individual interest in the soil. A full record is kept of 
alienations and the amount of tax due. The amount of rent 
or tax on the land varies on account of location, fertility and 
other circumstances from $1.20 to $1.30 and $1.50 per acre, 
per annum, f If the tax is to be considered as rent, it is cer- 
tainly not high. In Perry's expedition to Japan, he gives 
the rent or land tax in the island of Loo-Choo as six- tenths 
to the lord, or ruler, two-tenths to the cultivator, and two- 
tenths for the expense of supervision and collection. J The 
commodore places the rate of field wages in Loo Choo at 
from three to eight cents per day. Under the Chinese laws 
there are provisions for reclaiming lands not under cultiva- 
tion, and for securing location on new alluvial lands created 
along the rivers. This can only be done on an arrangement 
made with the government, or under the cognizance of its 
authorities, and a certain period of time is fixed during which 
no tribute is paid, as a just compensation for labor in re- 
claiming land.§ 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 2. f Ibid. 

% Perry's Expedition to Japan, page 252. 

§ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 3. 



180 ASIATIC TENUEES. 

The Chinese may be styled gardeners rather than farmers. 
The tracts held are small and usually thoroughly cultivated, 
often with the spade and hoe. The buffalo, or Chinese ox, is 
used for dry ploughing, and they also employ for that purpose 
horses, mules, cows, and even goats. Nieuhoff represents a 
Chinaman ploughing with his ass and his wife yoked together, 
but Williams, while admitting that this is sometimes done, 
considers it unusual. ~No inconsiderable portion of the agri- 
cultural labor is by hand, not only because better crops are 
produced, but on account of the expense of feeding large 
animals. While the pig and the goat can be fed on refuse 
and from waste spots of land, a horse or an ox would require 
as much land to maintain it as several human beings. Every- 
thing in the shape of manure is saved and the plant rather 
than the ground is manured. Terracing, although carried on 
in some portions of China, is not so common as is generally 
supposed. Agriculture holds the first rank in China among 
all the branches of labor. At the opening of the agricultural 
season there are great festivals, when the emperor and all the 
princes and grandees hold the plough. Irrigation, not only 
from the streams, but by hand and pump, is universal. Two 
or three immense rivers wind through China, their main 
course being from west to east. These are rivals of the great 
rivers of America. Their sources are fed from the perpetual 
snows in the highest mountains of the world, the Himalaya. 
The " Celestial mountains" stand on the western frontiers, 
and the Tengri Tagli and Ala-tagh are regions of snows, rivers, 
forests, wild animals, and almost as wild men. The Chinese 
have penal settlements across the mountain ranges in the 
valleys of the Hi.* Floods from the great rivers of China 
are the chief sources of disaster to the agriculturists. The 
greatest river in China changed the location of its mouth 
nearly one hundred miles. The result of all this in a densely 

* Hellwald's Kussians in Central Asia, page 59. 



PAUPERISM AND CRIME. 181 

populated country can be appreciated. It is considered as one 
of the duties of the government to build public granaries, in 
which shall be deposited a part of the revenue from the land, 
to support or furnish seed and food for those who have suffered 
from flood, drouth or other natural calamity. This govern- 
ment duty, like a good many other government duties, there 
and elsewhere, is, in many cases, more frequently omitted 
than performed. The necessities of the government, or the 
covetousness of the officials, tend to keep these grain depots 
much below the standard, so that when a great calamity comes 
there is not an adequate supply. In some instances great dis- 
tress and even mortality have resulted, and officials been 
decapitated and disgraced, and government shaken to its centre 
in consequence. Except this provision for natural calamity, 
China does not possess a pauper system.* The government 
also makes provision for canals and irrigation. Cooke informs 
us that there are large numbers of tramps in China. There 
is a very large class of coast and river pirates, and also orders 
or organized bands of thieves and robbers.f Besides punish- 
ment by whipping, which is common, not less than ten thou- 
sand criminals are annually executed in China. 

Several authorities agree that infanticide is practiced, espe- 
cially on female infants, but there is reason to believe that this 
has been exaggerated. In some towns and cities there is a 
" baby tower," into which dead infants, wrapped in matting, 
or other substance, are thrown, and these are from time to 
time burned out.J As the Chinese are usually very reverent 
and respectful to their dead, it appears this disrespect and 
indifference to dead infants arises from a superstition that 
infants dying young have been seized by a devil. The 
presence of the baby tower may lead to infanticide, but as 
our Chinese friends make profit, in case of necessity, out of 

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 190. 

f Ibid., page 191. J Ibid., page 91. 

16 



182 ASIATIC TENURES. 

their children, they are hardly likely to be destroyed in ordi- 
nary circumstances. Indeed, we learn that in many Chinese 
cities, among other charitable institutions there are foundling 
hospitals with a basket outside in which to deposit infants, 
and on striking a bamboo the basket is drawn in and no ques- 
tions asked.* Gray says these foundling hospitals are poorly 
kept. 

Slavery, to a very limited extent, exists in China. Williams 
says : " It is worthy of note how few slaves there are in China, 
and how easy their condition compared with those of Greece 
or Rome. 7 ' f Chinese slavery is, in point of fact, a mild 
domestic slavery. There is no great distinct enslaved class. 
It is by law and custom limited in its character. The power 
of a man over his child and wife is almost absolute. At an 
early age a child is worth so many dollars, and a father 
may transfer whatever rights he has in it. J While polygamy, 
slavery and prostitution exist to some extent, they have been 
circumscribed in their effects. § The absolute right of parents 
to their children and husbands to their wives is so recognized 
that they can sell them.|[ 

We have already quoted Marco Polo's description of the 
paper money issued by Kublai Khan. Pauthier reckoned 
that during that reign of thirty-four years, $624,135,500 of 
this currency was issued. It does not appear to have been 
discredited then, and was taken for dues, public and private. 
His weak successors, however, among their many other acts 
of misgovern ment, issued it to an extent altogether beyond the 
point at which it could be kept afloat, and Mr. Williams 
intimates that the overt h row of that dynasty was due to this 
circumstance. Paper money is not now regularly issued by 

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 99. 
f Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i , page 413. 
% Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 99. 
\ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 285. 
|| Xevius' China, page 253. 



BANKS AND PAPER MONEY. 183 

the Chinese govern merit, although it was during the Tae Ping 
rebellion. At present it is largely limited to the Peking 
district and government transactions, although the revenues 
are claimed in sycee silver. There are, however, any number 
of private banks, and these among other things are permitted 
to issue paper money.* This practice, we believe, is compara- 
tively modern. There are no banks with special charters, 
but a bank can be opened by any person or company. These 
are subject to certain laws and regulations, and are compelled 
to report their orgauization.f The circulation of the notes 
is limited. Some of them are confined in their operations 
to the city or to particular streets, or even one street. The 
notes, in a somewhat similar way to those of the bank of 
England, are endorsed by each holder. Very few counterfeit 
notes are met with, which is probably due to the limited range 
of the bills and the mode of endorsement. The worth of the 
bills depends on the exchange between silver and Chinese 
coin, and as these fluctuate daily the notes are thus forced 
home. The system must make a paradise in a small way 
for stock jobbers. No gold or silver are at present coined in 
China.J The Chinese coin are of equal parts of copper and 
zinc, or with a small admixture of lead and tin. These coins 
are styled relatively, tael, mace, candoreen and cash. The 
silver or gold coin in circulation, which is chiefly the former, 
are of foreign coins or bars of silver, " sycee." In the south- 
ern provinces bank notes are little known or used. Banks 
also issue letters of credit, and remittance by draft, the system 
of exchange, is as complete as in Europe. The number of 
these " offices," or banks, is large in proportion to the business 
of a town, but the capital only averages two or three thousand 
taels, which is petty enough. The number of banks in Tien- 
tsin is three hundred, and in Pekin four hundred, many cf 
these being branch banks. 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 85. 

flbid. J Ibid., page 83. 



184 ASIATIC TENURES. 

Interest in some cases runs as high as three per cent, a 
month, varying from that to ten and twelve per cent, per 
annum.* This permission of usury has, no doubt, disastrous 
effects on poor business men. The horde of petty bankers, 
however, is constantly under the supervision of the govern- 
ment : they are burdened with taxes, and do not, under such 
circumstances, succeed in creating a large class of non-pro- 
ducing capitalists. 

Next to the banks are the pawnbrokers. There are three 
kinds of pawnshops. They are strictly regulated by law. 
The habit of pawning is very general, and the results very 
disastrous to the poor and laboring classes.")" Some of these 
establishments are extensive; the English forces at Tinghai 
used one for a hospital, which accommodated three hundred 
patients. One of the evils connected with pawnshops is the 
facility they give to thieves.J Pawn tickets are offered for 
sale in the street, and are a constant article of merchandise. 
As in the case of the, bankers, the pawnbrokers have a rigid 
responsibility. The government compels them to meet their 
engagements. Pawned articles cannot be sold for three years, 
and no pawnbroker can go out of business without giving 
three years' notice. In case of fire originating in the pawn- 
broker's premises, the pawner claims the full amount. If 
the fire originates in a neighbor's house, or is conveyed from 
other premises, the pawnbroker makes up one half. 

One tendency of Chinese society is to crystallize into asso- 
ciations. § Everybody has to co-operate with somebody else, 
women as well as men. It is a leading aspiration to belong 
to one of the hwai, or societies, to be identified with its for- 
tunes and enlisted in its interests. Societies are formed for 
all purposes, even for robbery, and to secure protection from 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 87. 

f Gray's China, vol. ii., page 79. 

X Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 86. $ Ibid., page 87. 



SOCIETIES AND CORPORATIONS. 185 

robbery.* Williams thinks this results from the strong dem- 
ocratic element in Chinese polity. In trade or manufacture 
men associate. Petty capitalists associate to fouud banks. 
Trades associate to protect the interests of their respective 
crafts. Little farmers associate to buy an ox. Porters to 
monopolize the loads in certain wards, or chair bearers, to 
furnish all the sedans for a town. There are also money- 
lending clubs, or co-operative loan associations. f Even beg- 
gars are allotted to one or two streets by these societies, and 
are driven off another beat if they encroach. Villages form 
themselves into societies to regulate their matters and defend 
themselves against powerful clans.J Universal organization 
of towns and trades is the defense of this pacific people. In 
a country where there is no representative lawmaking body, 
these societies are all-powerful. Government, indeed, exists 
by their suffrance. This is probably one of the chief causes 
of the conservative character and extreme age of Chinese in- 
stitutions, for while rulers and even dynasties may change, 
there is rarely any modification in the essentials of Chinese 
polity. 

The Chinese government is absolute. The emperor and 
his council have power of life and death. They have no 
landed aristocracy, and no aristocracy founded on money or 
capital. The emperor's relatives and descendants to the 
eighth degree are princes and titular dignitaries, but when 
they get to the eighth degree, they again merge with the com- 
mon people. None of the royal family are permitted to hold 
office in the government. They receive stipends. The near- 
est relatives of the sovereign have an income of between thir- 
teen and fourteen thousand dollars, but have, in addition, a 
number of attendants to maintain their dignity, which, with 

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 191. 

t Gray's China, vol. ii., page 86. 

% Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 88. 



186 ASIATIC TENURES. 

allowances, make the charge to the state, for a few of the 
highest, from seventy to eighty thousand dollars a year. As 
the relationship gets more remote the salary dwindles rapidly, 
the lowest have four dollars per month and rations. Besides 
these there are some other titular dignities conferred by the 
emperor as gracious marks of his appreciation, and they are 
authorized to wear a certain shaped hat, with a certain kind 
of button on it. None of these titles are derived from landed 
estates. The recipients are without power, land, wealth, 
office or influence. The whole scheme of Chinese titular 
nobility has been adroitly devised to tickle human vanity 
without giving a figment of real influence or power. 

The officers who administer the government under the 
emperor, and all the officers of the provinces are, at least, 
theoretically, appointed for literary merit.* China is the 
chosen home of "civil service reform/ 7 which, like her tea 
and silks, we have imported. The regulations by law for 
competitive examinations are more elaborate than any other 
legal canons in China. These examinations are open to all 
reputable persons ; that is, they must be of a family which, 
for three generations, have not been criminals, slaves, execu- 
tioners, actors, or been engaged in vicious or disreputable 
callings. Education is mainly sought for official position. 
Women in China do not receive as good educations as men.f 
The aspirants for office are of all ages, from the callow youth 
to the man of sixty, are shut up during examinations. It is 
true, the government, when its treasury is deficient, occasionally 
puts up its offices for sale, but only to be sold to those who 
have at least respectable literary qualifications. Corruption 
has sometimes been charged in the modes of determining the 
result of competitive examinations. Its advantages in a 
country like China are, that the door of preferment is opened 

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 442. 
f Nevius' China, page 238. 



CHINESE OFFICIALS. 187 

to every man ; and an inducement is thus given to lead an 
honorable life. The cohesive power of this element in main- 
taining the government cannot be overestimated. 

It is very true that many Chinese officials are notoriously 
corrupt. Rapacity, bribery and peculations of every kind are 
common. The people bear these patiently, because every 
man believes that he will, some day, be a mandarin himself. 
With all its faults, as Morrison, Gray, and, indeed, all respect- 
able authorities agree, there is great regularity and system in 
the Chinese government. Every district has its appropriate 
officers, every street its constable, and every ten houses their 
tithing man. While the higher functionaries affect great 
moderation and dignity, the petty officials, such as clerks, con- 
stables, lictors and underlings, are called by the Chinese 
" claws," because they are supposed to extort. All the lead- 
ing officers are required to report, by card, to the emperor, 
twice a month. Commissioners or inspectors are sent by the 
emperor to see what is going on in all departments of the 
government. These are his eyes and ears, and action on 
their reports are not usually arbitrary, but the result of de- 
liberation in council. 

While there is no representative body there are two great 
councils. One of these has to do with the general adminis- 
tration of the civil government, and the other with the army 
and supervision of the administration of justice. Appeals 
may be had from the lower courts, but, to a poor man, that is 
not much advantage. Every man is supposed, of right, to 
have free access to magistrates and dignitaries, and their com- 
plaint to be considered. The councilors supervise the pro- 
mulgation of canons or laws, which are believed to emanate 
from the emperor. The members of both councils are selected 
by the emperor, from the official class, during good behavior. 
Cooke says that while the government makes appropriation 
for bridges, canals, irrigation, etc., the mandarins and con- 
tractors use a large part of it between them, or for bribes to 



188 ASIATIC TENURES. 

those who might be able to call their operations in question.* 
There is great danger, however, of getting a notification to 
perform hari kari, or, at least, be dismissed or banished. 
When a Chinese official refuses to commit suicide, if notified 
to do so, all his relatives and their property suffer. The 
savings of officials have not enabled them to build up a per- 
manent wealthy class. 

The Chinese government is weak against foreign invasion 
or rebellion. In some cases where the government cannot 
suppress a rebellion, it buys up or rewards the leaders, and 
thus breaks and destroys their organization. All their neigh- 
bors, Manchus, Tartars and Mongols, scoff at the cowardice or 
inefficiency of their troops. They are great philosophers, 
however, and the science of military affairs, crude as it is, is 
far in advance of the practice. 

The religion of the Chinese is a singular compound. Con- 
fucius was merely a philosopher Avith fine maxims. Bud- 
dhism is the chief nominal religion, and was introduced to 
China in the first century of the Christian era.f Confucius 
recognized ancestor worship. Williams intimates that skepti- 
cism is much more common than religion of any kind. The 
Chinese worshipers have been placed in three classes : First, 
the priests or adepts who abstain from animal food and per- 
form the ritual so as to fit themselves for absorption into some- 
thing ; second, those who cannot comprehend any abstruse 
speculations, but through religious fervor endeavor to do what 
they believe to be their duty ; and third, the lower orders, who 
cannot rise above the forms and ceremonies ; and this class is 
largely composed of old women. J It lias been said that the 
latter, in their prayers to be transformed at death, ask to be 
transformed into men. Judging from the way women are 
treated in China this is not surprising. In the Buddhistic 

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 98. 

t Gray's China, vol. i., page 105. 

X Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 121. 



POPULATION. 189 

temples they have chanting in the morning and the evening, 
and it is a noteworthy coincidence, that this is partly in the 
native or Chinese language and partly in the Sanscrit tongue, 
clearly showing the origin of this faith. The incomes of the 
monasteries are chiefly derived from the voluntary offerings 
of the worshipers, partly from allowances or fees for priestly 
services at funerals and other domestic ceremonies; some of 
them have been endowed with a small quantity of land, but 
the latter is of limited amount.* The real worship is ancestor 
worship. A man's father and grandfathers are in his pan- 
theon. The Chinese believe these absent ones in their migra- 
tions are cognizant of all they do, and expecting their sympathy 
they pray to them and present food at their shrines. This 
belief has much to do with their whole social and political 
system. The degradation of their women is the chief cause 
of the worst elements of the Chinese character. A husband 
in China can divorce his wife for seven reasons, but is obliged 
to maintain her if she has no home.f 

Practically, China presents to us an organized government 
ruling the most dense population on earth. Take China as a 
whole, from the Tien Shan mountains to the sea : By the census 
of 1812, there was a population of 268 to the square mile, and 
it is, of course, greater now. By the census of 1881, Bengal 
had a population of 440 to the square mile, and England, in 
the same year, 289, to the square mile. In China, the southern 
and western provinces stood only 154 to the square mile, but 
in the great plain or lower country, an immense empire in 
itself, the population was, in 1812, 458 to the square mile, 
and is now probably nearer 500. If nominal wages are low 
the price of staple eatables is also low. There is, in fact, less 
disparity of condition among the masses of China than with 
Europeans. There is no system of inheritance which tends 

* Nevius' China, page 99. 

f Doolittle's Social Life among the Chinese, page 75. 



190 ASIATIC TENURES. 

to throw property in a few hands, and the fixed polity of the 
government is to prevent this. The tea, silk and porcelain 
manufactures are mainly in the hands of the masses, and the 
tendency of all their customs and political systems is to dis- 
tribute and scatter, rather than concentrate. The distinction 
between a farmer and a laborer is not great. Servants are 
hired by the month at from three to five dollars ; cooks by the 
year. Domestics and slaves are on intimate and social rela- 
tions with their masters.* The only nonproducing classes in 
the country are the civil officers, most of whom are kept busy, 
the army, and a few pensioned nobles. The farms are small, 
and the buildings and improvements not of much value, and 
the dwellings in cities are not greatly in advance of those in 
the country. The material of the houses, which is largely 
bamboo, can be removed. Except public buildings and bridges, 
the architecture of China is not imposing. Even the public 
buildings, if we consider the age of the empire and its popula- 
tion of several hundred millions, are not equal to the archi- 
tecture of other nations. This at least shows that the efforts 
of the people are not expended on public works. Labor is 
cheap, when a girl can be purchased for from fifteen to one 
hundred dollars, but then she must be clothed and fed. The 
statements regarding the entire revenue of this empire of four 
hundred millions of people, are very conflicting, varying all 
the way between eighty millions and three hundred millions 
of dollars per annum. Probably the truth lies between 
these figures. From these taxes all the expenses of the gov- 
ernment are maintained, including the pensions or salaries of 
the members of the royal family, which is the only salaried 
aristocratic class. If the total Chinese tax amounted to the 
highest figures given, three hundred million dollars, it would 
be less than the revenue raised by the United States govern- 
ment, which was some three hundred and twenty-six millions 

* Gray's China, vol. L, page 240. 



GKEAT AKD LITTLE RUSSIA. ] 91 

in 1884. Three-fourths of the Chinese revenues are derived 
from the land tax or rent, a portion from salt and other 
monopolies,* and the remainder from customs. It must be 
remembered that the population of China is seven or eight 
times as large as that of the United States, and, in addition, 
the Chinese have no state or county tax. Except the tax 
referred to, the people cultivate the lands without paying other 
rent. It is plain that they do not suffer from heavy public 
burdens. 

In the past few centuries a new nation has been growing 
up, stretching far across Europe to the Vistula, and maintain- 
ing its dominion across the Asiatic continent to Behring's 
Strait. It would not be correct to style it a people, for it 
embraces many peoples. Much of the country included within 
its recognized boundaries is a wilderness, and vast stretches of 
icy waste reach northward to the frozen sea. Russia proper 
has been classified as Great and Little Russia, the former 
with Moscow, the latter with Kiev for its centre. The Rus- 
sian country or empire has been created by a system of con- 
stantly spreading or continuous emigrations of local communi- 
ties. Little Russia was the mother country, and was purely 
Sclavonic. Great Russia was made by conquering and driving 
out the Finnic tribes and partly by absorbing them. The 
village is the unit of the Russian system. The village con- 
tains nearly everything within itself — agriculture, stock raising, 
manufactures, and is a well-knit community in all its interests. 
There is a closely packed village of block houses on each side 
of a broad street, shut up at the two ends by stockades. It is 
organized for defense and business. The enclosed space in 
the street is the common workshop. Cattle stands, threshing 
floors, barns, granaries, are attached to each block house and 
mark where general interests end and individual interests 
begin. The clearing is made in the forests by the joint labor 

* Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese, page 281. 



192 ASIATIC TENURES. 

of all, and in the common field each male person has his por- 
tion. This is called the mir, and defines the early rights 
known to their landed system. It is a right of each child 
born in the village. The mir of Central Russia and the gro- 
made of Southern Russia is the peasant's conception of supreme 
authority.* The village is the nucleus or centre of Russia. 
In other countries a man with a large family is burdened, but 
in the Russian village the household gets an addition of the 
productive domain for every child that is born.f The large 
land cultivators are men of large families, and few children or 
none, give a small farm. The village, not the family, was the 
social unit. Every question is settled before the village mir. 
These village communes meet under the vault of heaven, chair- 
man there is none. The right of speaking belongs to him who 
can command attention. If a speaker is acceptable they listen to 
him and if not he is soon stopped. Sometimes all speak at once. 
Voting is unknown. The majority does not force the minority. 
The discussion goes on until all can agree on the action to be 
taken or some plan finds acceptance. There must be conces- 
sions. It is compromise, not coercion.^ The term mir means 
more than the council ; it means the right of the individual as 
a part of the village. Parties in Russia differ widely from 
parties in Western Europe or with us. With the Russian 
peasant communism in land is designated as the Sclavonian 
substratum of civilization. They are not ignorant of the land 
systems of Western Europe, and hold that these have crept in 
among a people who knew of, or once had institutions like the 
Russian mir, and made a fatal blunder early in their career, 
exposing themselves to sure decay, by allowing individual and 
alienable rights to land. Land, the Russian villager argues, 
has never been produced but found. Rent paid to individuals 
has therefore no foundation in justice. Only such rent or tax 

* Stepniak's Russia under the Tzars, page 2. 

t Systems of Land Tenure, page 331. 

% Stepniak's Russia under the Tzars, page 3. 



HOUSE COMMUNITIES. 193 

may be taken from it as is necessary for the expenditure of the 
lesser or larger community, the village or the state. 

There is, therefore, a fundamental difference in the ideas 
and polity of Eastern and Western Europe. While Little 
Russia was the mother of colonies and of Great Russia, there 
grew up around Novgorod great clusters of democratic vil- 
lages. Russia in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was ultra 
democratic* In three or four hundred years it has been 
converted into a despotism. Russia spread out like a tree. 
As a village became crowded it sent out a colony far into 
unoccupied regions. A system of spreading settlements, such 
as has existed in America for the past three hundred years, 
has been going on in Russia for a much longer period, but 
widely differing from it in many respects. In America, the 
tendency was to the individual ; in Russia, to the community. In 
this manner, like swarms of bees, the great Russian Empire was 
formed. The mother villages exercised a care and parental 
authority over the colonies. Even after the lapse of fifty 
years they assisted them. When young men went to other 
villages or cities they were commissioned to secure orders for 
the whole community, and were not expected to confine their 
efforts to their individual interests. Everything connected 
with trade was a village matter. 

In the south Sclavonic countries there are house communi- 
ties which have largely been made under Turkish rule.f Sir 
Henry Sumner Maine says that in the Russian village com- 
munities the bond of kinship, though still recognized in lan- 
guage, is feeble and indistinct. Toward the south the related 
families no longer hold their lands as a common fund, but 
distribute them periodically.^ Professor Bogisic says the 
house communities rarely consist of more than sixty persons. 
They are as far as possible from being patriarchal despotisms. § 

* Stepniak's Russia Under the Tzars, page 24. 
f Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 242. 

t Ibid., page 240. § Ibid., page 244. 

17 



194 ASTATIC TENURES. 

They are democratically governed. Every member of the 
body has a right to be fed, housed and clothed out of the 
common fund. Every daughter has a right to a marriage 
portion, every son to a portion for his wife, every male a 
voice in its government.* When placed under the Mahom- 
etan law, a daughter took half a son's share. Among the 
south Sclavonic races women have certain property, like the 
East Indian stridhan, that descends to women heiresses. The 
Sclavonian communities have long and steadily resisted indi- 
vidual property that could be alienated.f With house com- 
munities as a general rule, land, oxen or cattle necessary for 
carrying on the business of the community is incapable of 
alienation.^ Although to some extent they might be, and 
often were, these house communities were not natural families 
as they not only adopted others but were often largely made 
up from outside persons. They were more democratic than 
the natural family. Under the Sclavonian usages the house 
communities developed into the village communities, although 
in the south, the former have struggled for their identity. 
"All recent observers of house communities," says Maine, 
"regret their decline." In the mingling of peoples, and the 
assertion of individual interests, the house community suffers. 
A member goes abroad, makes a fortune, and when he re- 
turns, the others attempt to induce him to divide. On the 
other hand, some dissatisfied or ambitious persons desiring to 
leave are induced by the laws and customs of society around 
them to demand a distributive share of the assets, so that they 
can go off and begin elsewhere. Both these causes when 
supplemented by general law and authority inimical to 
house communities tend to disintegrate them. The Austrian 
code has been fatal to the house communities. On the Aus- 
trian military frontiers where house communities have been 

* Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 252. 

f Ibid., page 249. - J Ibid. 



SCANDINAVIAN AND TARTAR. 195 

placed on land subject to military service, under the Austrian 
system, the chief of the house community grew into a noble- 
man and lord of the manor.* 

In the dawn of Russian recorded history we meet with the 
existence of slaves, but they were merely prisoners of war. 
The same Scandinavian or Norman warriors who invaded 
France, and, ultimately, England, invaded Russia in the 
ninth century,f and founded a species of monarchy over 
European Russia, and gave the name of Russ, or Russian. 
Stepniak says these dukes and the different princes were 
at first the servants of the people, and not their masters. 
The vetche, great or small, selected them, and dispensed with 
their services. They were leaders in war, and their whole 
function related to defense. There was not, in fact, before 
the time of Peter the Great, any organized government or 
system of laws or edicts in Russia. The call of a prince or 
duke by the vetche was only the first step in his election : the 
next was the conclusion of a convention, the riada.J The 
riada was a constitutional pact or bargain. It defined the 
mutual obligations of the contracting parties. Besides the 
defense of the country, he was to act as judge in great cases, 
not interfering, however, with the power of the mir or 
vetche. 

The inroad of the Tartars and Kaptschaks under a lieuten- 
ant of Genghis Khan, put a stop to the authority of the 
dynasty of Ruric. They did not expel the Scandinavians, 
but made them a species of deputies. Their business was not 
with the Russian people but with the rulers. They com- 
pelled the latter to surrender a large portion of the tribute 
they had taken from the peasantry. These fresh invaders 
interfered but little with the mir of the villages or the vetche, 
and left their land system as they found it. This Tartar and 

* Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 266. 

f Kelley's Eussia, vol. i., page 8. 

X Stepniak's Eussia under the Tzars, page 9. 



196 ASIATIC TENURES. 

Kaptschak rule lasted for more than two hundred years, when 
Duke Ivan contrived to overthrow the yoke of the Tartars. 
In fact, about that time all the governments founded under 
Genghis Khan were disappearing. 

The resumption of authority by the old dukes or princes did 
no good to Russia. Ivan, in 1482, took the title of Tzar of 
Muscovy. In 1598, Boris Goodonof, a usurper, issued a 
ukase forbidding the peasant from leaving his native village 
without a passport from the government authorities.* Indeed, 
with the withdrawal of the Tartars the disfranchisement of 
the peasantry began, but it progressed very slowly. A 
nobility, the friends, relatives and retainers of the Tzar was 
soon created. When this was first done the tribute from the 
land was not increased, but part of the tax was given to the 
nobles and the remainder to the Tzar. The next step Avas to 
set apart certain villages for the nobles over which they had 
charge, and in this way originated the distinction of Tzar's 
villages and the villages of nobles. While this new autonomy 
was created, it did not at first interfere with the mir of the 
villages or their mode of transacting business, and it was some 
time before the people became conscious that a great bloAv had 
been struck at their liberties. The Tzar finally cultivated part 
of the villages he claimed by slaves who had been captives 
taken in war. Ivan IV., by a ukase, defined certain villages as 
state villages, or villages owing tribute to the government, and 
certain villages as the personal property of the Tzar, thus claim- 
ing what was not his own. A great many villages formerly 
paying a public revenue to the state now paid it as the property 
of the Tzar or of the nobility. When Boris Goodonof issued 
his ukase to prevent the peasants from leaving their villages 
without the consent of government, it was to check an increased 
spirit of colonization to new fields, that threatened to leave 
the nobles and the Tzar without tenants. These encroachments 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 324. 



SERFDOM. 1 97 

continued until the reign of the wicked Peter the First, who 
assumed the title of emperor in 1721 and reduced a large 
portion of the peasants of Russia to serfdom. He degraded 
the old nobility and created a new, which he supposed would 
be devoted to himself. These had to reach distinction through 
grades of military and civil service. Then began the official 
tchin and tchinovnik so detested by the peasantry of Russia : 
official classes of the general government, all of whose actions 
constantly infringed on the rights of the peasants, burdened 
them with new and heavier exactions, restricted their liberty 
and degraded them.* In 1715 Peter established the law of 
primogeniture. 

The attempts to improve the condition of the Russian peas- 
antry began with the emperor Nicholas. It is true the 
emperor Paul, in 1797, by a ukase, restored to the peasantry 
the right to elect their village heads. The first important act 
of Nicholas was by a ukase issued in 1848, to permit the pro- 
prietors of estates, by treaty, to transform their serfs into 
farmers. In 1848 he abolished the despotic regulation which 
forbade private peasants from buying immovable property. 
He further forbid the sale of peasants without land. When 
the emperor Alexander II. announced his determination to do 
justice to the peasants, he found nearly one-half of them, con- 
stituting more than a third of the population of the empire, 
practically slaves, tilling a soil that did not belong to them, 
without being paid for their labor, during three days in the 
week, while they had to maintain themselves and families by 
toiling the other three. The measure of Nicholas to induce 
the nobility to free their serfs having practically failed, it was 
now determined that it should be done by imperial decree. 
The serf had, however, not been a slave in the same sense that 
an American negro was a slave. He was a kind of slave 
attached to the land. To give him his freedom and leave the 

* Kelley's Eussia, vol. i., page 357. 



198 ASIATIC TENURES. 

land with the nobles or the Tzar would not answer. It was 
thus in substance agreed that the land should be divided 
between the nobles and the peasants. This compromise, like 
many human devices, proved unsatisfactory. How was the 
enfranchised serf to hold his land? Was he to hold it as he 
desired to hold it in a community or village under the mir? It 
was on this question that parties in Russia divided. The 
Sclavonian socialists insisted and still insist on the ancient sys- 
tem, and utterly repudiate the western idea of title. In the 
settlement it had to be conceded that it should be optional vt'ith. 
the peasantry whether they would hold their land individually 
or under the mir. Thus was left side by side, noble proprietors 
who had to employ labor, and a peasantry to cultivate a com- 
mon estate. The ultimate result of this experiment constitutes 
one of the difficult problems of the present generation. The 
disturbances in Russia indicate that enough was not attempted 
and what has been done has not been done well. 

Russia is a comparatively new government. With much 
new and active blood Russia is still full of irreconcilable ele- 
ments. So long as a mighty army can be kept in the hands 
of the Tzar, while a corrupt judicial system and the horrors 
of Siberia remain to punish liberty-loving men and women, 
this tyrannical government may continue. Through all their 
vicissitudes this great Sclavonic people are slowly acquiring 
knowledge, resources and power, and while to-day Russia is 
the most despotic government in the world, there is a prophetic 
promise that it will yet become the most democratic. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE LAND SYSTEM OF MODERN EUEOPE. 

Lavergne — Agrarian legislation of this century — Lawns and deer parks 
versus cottages — French small holdings — Number of proprietors in France 
and Britain — Condition of the French peasantry — Exports of England 
and France — Effect of small farms on wages — Oppressive debts of the 
aristocracy — Improvements under large and small holdings — Code Napo- 
leon — French law of inheritance — Belgium — Laveleye — Made lands — 
Gross production of a hectare — Spade husbandry — Short and long leases 
— Average food of workingmen in Europe — Spain — Aristocracy and 
decay of husbandry — Average wages — Aforamento — Portuguese tenure — 
Austria Hungary — Size of estates — Number of cultivating farmers — 
Tenants and farm laborers — Wages and work of men and women — Italy 
— Relative population — Number of land owners — Tenants and leases — 
Rent — Wages — Production — Land tenure in Switzerland, Denmark and 
Sweden — Number and kind of land owners— Size of estates — Food of 
working people — Wages — Emigration from Scandinavian nations — Prus- 
sia — Per cent, of land owners — Price of land — Abolition of Villeinage — 
Agrarian legislation — Rent — Food — Wages. 

M. de Lavergne, in his work, " Rural Economy in Eng- 
land," credits the great progress in agriculture in Britain in the 
past two hundred years, to " political institutions, political liberty 
and political tranquillity." In the sixteenth century a great 
revolution had occurred in the economical history of England 
by substituting money rents for personal services. This change 
in land tenures, while it had a tendency to free the peasant 
or villein from degrading service and a very offensive kind 
of personal slavery, also divorced the peasant from the land 
and to that extent was one of the steps toward closing his 
interest in it, and creating a distinct title in the land owner, 
which he has since asserted. In every country of modern 

199 



200 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

Europe these changes had been going on. In Germany the 
technical change from feudal tenure is marked by the legisla- 
tion beginning with this century ; but in all these nations 
radical changes had been effected both in governments and the 
privileges of the people. Absolute slavery had been first 
abolished and then villeinage, vassalage, serfdom and the 
various kinds of limited personal service growing out of rent 
or duty incident to the cultivation of the soil. The relief the 
vassal or villein thus obtained from servitude that had become 
degrading, was unhappily supplemented by the assumptions 
on the part of the aristocratic class of a fixed title, personal to 
themselves in the manor, common domains and landed estates, 
in which the theory had been that all had an interest. The 
freedom of the individual peasant ought to have been accom- 
panied by freedom to the land. All the conditions on which 
the lords had any pretense of a claim to it had passed away. 
The first assumption that the nobles became possessed of the 
allotted lands was followed up by their attempt to fence up 
the public commons. These lands had been largely used for 
grazing, and afforded a privilege for all the citizens for that 
purpose and cutting necessary timber from the forests. Great 
complaints were made about these encroachments.* The grass 
or pasturage, husbandry, and the proceeds of the forests thus 
became a private monopoly, while communities and villages 
were also driven out. Nasse, in his work on these inclosures, 
says that sometimes three shepherds were employed where two 
hundred men had supported themselves by honest labor. 
Deer forests were made. Several enactments were issued 
against these agrarian proceedings of the nobles, but do not 
seem to have been able to put a stop to them. An Act of 
Henry VII., cap. 19, is quaintly entitled: " An Act against 
pulling downe of touns." The lands from the vicinity of 
which these towns were demolished were, as the Act recites : 

* Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 124. 



SMALL FARMS IN FRANCE. 201 

"laying to pasture lands which customably have been manured, 
and occupied wyth tyllage and husbandry." In Henry VIII.'s 
time this evil had assumed great proportions. Some men 
possessed twenty-four thousand sheep, and against the latter 
Henry had several Acts leveled, by one of which it was pro- 
vided : " No one, therefore, shall possess more than two thou- 
sand sheep, with the exception of laymen, who, upon their 
own inheritance, may possess as many as they please, but they 
must not carry on sheep farming on other properties." 

In these revolutions, encroachments and changes, which 
were carried down to a very recent period, the present titles 
in modern Europe crystallized. In some countries the small 
holders were still numerous. France, to-day, presents the 
most wonderful and successful experiment in small holdings, 
" petite culture/' The contrast between France and England 
is an extraordinary spectacle. It is the opinion generally 
entertained, which is, undoubtedly, to some extent, true, that 
the system of small holdings in France has resulted from the 
French revolution, and been perpetuated, and increased by 
the code Napoleon. The people of France have always 
favored small holdings. About the close of the sixteenth 
century, and while the changes of which we have spoken were 
going on, the French peasants purchased small tracts, often 
not more than half an acre.* They were, however, deprived 
of much benefit therefrom by feudal oppressions, in the shape 
of numberless fees exacted, and merciless taxation. Not until 
after the revolution did the present system begin to flourish. 
The official statistics of France, following the enumeration of 
1850, reckon no less than 7,845,724 "proprietors of lands," 
including houses and lots in towns. Of these, about five mil- 
lions are rural proprietors, of whom nearly four millions are 
actual cultivators. f The official tables return no less than 
3,799,775 land owners as cultivators of the soil, and, of these, 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 294. f Ibid., page 292. 



202 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

57,639 are represented as cultivating through head laborers, 
and 3,740,793 who cultivated their lands in person. Since 
1851, the number of cultivating proprietors has largely in- 
creased. M. de Lavergne estimates that there are five million 
proprietors of whom at least three million cultivate only 
an average of a hectare apiece, — little over two acres. Mulhall, 
in his work of 1884, gives 154,000 land proprietors in France 
whose lands average 320 acres, 636,000 whose lands average 
50 acres each, and 3,226,000 who are the proprietors on an 
average of 10 acres each.* He estimates, or gives the num- 
ber of separate properties, in 1881, at 6,942,974, his statistics 
showing a considerable increase in separate properties since 
1858. M. de Lavergne estimates that there are at present 
250,000 who own lands in Great Britain, but some of these 
are urban and not rural holders. Mulhall, in 1884, gives for 
Great Britain 180,524 land owners, who own, in the aggre- 
gate, 70,279,000, the average number of acres to a holder 
being 390. f The same authority gives for France three 
million, two hundred and twenty-six thousand owners who 
possess five acres and upward, but his figures in both England 
and France do not include cottars or holders of a few acres. 
These latter, as has been shown are a very large class in 
France, but a comparatively small class of independent hold- 
ers in England. The Statesman's Year Book (Scott Keltie) 
for 1885 gives the number of persons who own upward of 
an acre in Great Britain as 321,386, but gives 852,408 per- 
sons who own less than an acre (presumably lot owners in 
cities). By Great Britain is included England, Wales, Scot- 
land, Ireland and the channel Islands. This latter authority 
estimates that in England and Wales one person in twenty 
owns land in some amount.J In Scotland, one in twenty- 
five, and in Ireland, one in seventy-nine. The discrepancy 

* MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics 1884, page 269. 

t Ibid., page 266. 

X Statesman's Year Book, for 1885, page 252. 



FRENCH AND BRITISH FARMING. 203 

in these different figures quoted, arises partly from confound- 
ing lot owners with owners of small farms who live on 
and cultivate them. Another source of confusion has been 
in giving the separate tracts owned, when in many cases, 
especially in England, one person owns several of them. 
In 1884 the population of Great Britain was 35,961,540.* 
The same authority gives the population of France, December, 
1881, at 37,672,048. These two, the most wealthy and en- 
lightened nations in modern Europe, thus offer us a study of 
much value as to great and small holdings. It will be seen 
that the great body of British agriculturists are renters, the 
land-owning agriculturist being the exception, while in 
France the great body of the agricultural population are land 
owners, living on their own farms and cultivating and im- 
proving their own soil. Again, the number of land owners 
in England has been steadily decreasing. In France, under 
the system established by the revolution, and systematized by 
the code Napoleon, the number of small farms steadily in- 
creases. Laborers without lands are continually becoming 
land owners, and the farms more subdivided. It is, there- 
fore important to examine the results of this small culture in 
France. This system has continued until, in some of the greatest 
departments in France, farms of one hundred hectares, upward 
of two hundred acres, are so scarce that they can be counted on 
the fingers. The great estates are day by day being purchased 
by small proprietors. A certain class of political economists 
have denounced this tendency to small farms as likely to reduce 
the productive powers of the country. Mr. Leslie says " Four 
millions of land owners cultivating the soil of a territory only 
one-third larger than Great Britain, may probably appear to 
the minds, familiar only with great estates and large farms, 
almost a redudio ad absurdum of the land system of the 
French ; " but he adds : " Those who have studied the condi- 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 253. 



204 EUEOPEAN LAND TENURES. 

tion of the French, not merely from books, but in their own 
country, and who have witnessed the improvements which 
have taken place in French cultivation, year after year, 
will probably regard the number with a feeling of satis- 
faction." * The same writer adds : " The system of small 
property is daily gaining ground in France," and " The fact 
that the small cultivating landholder is a continual buyer of 
land proves that it is profitable." This culture is a species of 
garden tillage; no inconsiderable portion of the work is done 
by hand, and this tillage in France has demonstrated, as it has 
done everywhere else, that the soil produces more, that there 
is less waste, and that the country is thus better able to sustain 
a great population. France is a manufacturing country, and 
yet we find that in 1880 her exports of woolen, silk and cotton 
goods amounted to (reducing it to dollars) $135,000,000, while 
her exports of wine, spirits, sugar, grain, fruit, cheese and 
eggs, amounted to $120,000,000,f the latter being productions 
of her soil. These exports, moreover, have been steadily and 
to a large extent increasing in the past thirty or forty years. 
While France exports grain, Great Britain, in 1880, imported 
upward of four hundred millions of dollars worth of grain and 
meat. J Bread and meat are cheaper in France than in England, 
bread standing as four to six, the meats nine and a half to ten. § 
So far as emigration may show greater distress among the 
people, while the population of Britain is less by upward 
of two millions than France, we find that from 1820 to 1882 
there emigrated from Great Britain eight million, five hundred 
and seventy thousand of her people. From France, during 
the same period the emigration was only three hundred and 
eighty-four thousand. || These statistics show very conclusively 
the advantages of the petite culture of France. It is also true, 
that in the past two-thirds of a century the improvements on 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 293. 

t Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, 1884, page 180. 

% Ibid., page 104. \ Ibid., page 375. || Ibid., page 168. 



ARISTOCRATIC DEBT BURDENS. 205 

the small farms are much greater than they would be if the 
laud was held by reiiters. The cultivators are uot ouly able 
to buy more laud whenever au opportunity offers, but to 
improve the condition of what they have. Mr. Leslie says: 
" There is nothing so delightful as the cottages in France, so 
clean and so orderly." * Arthur Young predicted that such 
small divisions would make France a " rabbit warren." It 
was also predicted that as there would be no wealthy employers 
the common laborers would suffer and wages decline. The 
contrary is the fact. The small farm culture in France has 
increased wages, f partly OAving to better production from the 
soil, and partly from the fact that the laborers have continually 
been changing to small holders. Mr. Leslie on this subject 
says that seventy-five per cent, of those who were mere laborers 
when this system began have become owners of land. It was 
also said by the political economists that these small farmers 
would be burdened with debt so as to cripple them. M. de 
Lavergne estimates the debt on the small properties in France 
to be only five per cent, of their value. Many of the larger 
estates in Britain and Germany of the kind on which debt can 
be placed, are burdened with it to the extent of more than 
half their value, and but for the law of entail the large British 
estates would long ago have gone out of the families owning 
them. In point of fact, owing to the extravagance of the aris- 
tocracy, many of them are heavily burdened so far as the life 
interest is concerned, and it is to this condition of embarrass- 
ment and debt of the aristocracy that much of the rack rent- 
ing by the noble owners is due. Sir Wren Hoskyn, in his 
"Land in England, Land in Ireland and Land in other 
Lands/' says : " The modern doctrine of the most produce by 
the least labor, is, as applied to the soil, the doctrine of starva- 
tion to the laborers." 

While the great bulk of France has thus been reclaimed for 



* Systems of Land Tenure, page 299. f Ibid. 

18 



206 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

Frenchmen, there is still a portion cultivated by tenants. At 
a recent date France still contained in all the departments 
some fifty thousand landed properties of upward of two 
hundred hectares, more than four hundred acres.* There are 
at present upward of one million of tenant farmers in France. 
There are two kinds of lease tenure. First, leases of three, 
six or nine years ; an occasional rare lease may be for eight- 
een. Second, the metayage system, by which the landlord and 
his tenant are sharers in the crops. The landlord furnishes 
the land and part of the capital required to work it, the 
tenant the labor and the remainder of the capital. The pro- 
duce is divided and the amount of capital furnished by each 
varies on account of the locality, quality of soil, etc. In 
France, whether this cultivation of the soil of landlords is 
carried on by lease or metayage, the terms of years of holding 
are usually short, and as the tenant has comparatively little 
interest in the estate he invests but little in improvements. 
Where irrigation is needed, as it often is in some seasons, the 
land held by lease or on shares is seldom properly irrigated, 
while the small farms of the independent holders are so almost 
invariably. For improvements in the nature of drainage or 
irrigation no right of compensation of any kind exists, f 
Under the code some compensation may be obtained by the 
tenant for unexhausted manures or unexhausted improve- 
ments of a certain character. It is fortunate for France that 
the tendency of her land system is to make the cultivating 
tenant, if possible, a proprietor. It has been said by careful 
observers that the present land system of France is one of the 
principal securities for the tranquillity of Europe. If the 
French peasantry had been once more oppressed, disturbances 
would have followed. It is customary to judge the French 
Revolution by its excesses, and in them to forget the wrongs 
out of which its fierce spirit grew, and the good results which 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 304. f Ibid., page 309. 



FRENCH LAW OF INHERITANCE. 207 

have come from that convulsion. On the 4th of August, 
1879, the constituent assembly of France abolished feudal 
rights and privileges.* About the same time they made their 
declaration of rights, and in November of that year decreed 
the transfer of the ecclesiastical property to the state. They 
abolished tithes, game laws, immunities, seignorial dues, 
gabelle and aristocracy, f In 1792, the national convention 
took the place of the legislative assembly, and declared France 
a republic. In 1804, the code of France was published,! 
afterward called the " Code de Napoleon." The code, in so 
far as it affected the present condition of affairs in France, was 
but part of the will of the French nation, then and now. 
The old feudal nobles had been stripped of the estates they 
had improperly assumed to own, and their exactions from the 
people ended. Whether by convention, assembly or legislative 
assembly, all struck a fresh blow at the nobles. So far did the 
hatred of aristocracy go that those who had not fled into exile 
or been guillotined were declared aliens. Practically, the 
work of the convention still stands, and none of the many 
political changes have been able to modify it. The subdivision 
of land is facilitated by the structure of the French law, 
first, the law of transfer, and second, the law of succession. 
The French law of succession does not altogether deny the 
power of a parent or head of a family to devise property, 
but his power over the property he has is limited to an 
amount equal to the share of one child; that is, with four 
children he can, by will, dispose of one-fifth of his property, 
all the rest goes share and share alike to the children, after the 
widow has received her interest. Nor has he the power to 
prevent divisions of the land. If one takes an equivalent it 
is simply a matter of agreement or sale by the party inter- 
ested. Operating against these forced subdivisions, and as a 

* Helprin's Historical Eeference Book, page 110. 
t-Carlvle's French Kevolution, vol. i., page 212. 
% Helprin's Historical Eeference Book, page 120. 



208 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

check and counterpoise, is the disposition to accumulate. The 
peasant owners are the great land buyers in France.* They 
are continually buying and adding to their farms. While 
the policy pursued toward great holdings and the encourage- 
ment to small holdings has produced and is producing this 
result, obstacles have also been placed in the way of mutations 
in title. Every transaction aifecting title to real estate has to 
be recorded, and in addition there is a tax on sales of six per 
cent. In selling, moreover, a successor pays tax on the entire 
value of the property, f without deducting for the mortgage. 
In spite of this tax these laud sales of small quantities are con- 
tinuous and the price, of course, increasing. We do not find 
in France, however, a class of speculating non-occupying 
dealers. The buyers are almost exclusively occupants. Capital 
is more equally distributed in France than in England.J A 
large amount of the national debt of France is held by these 
peasant landholders. This was one thing that enabled France 
to meet her great war indemnity to Germany. In- the last 
half century the French have shown great recuperative 
power. 

In addition to the peasant holdings and the larger holdings 
of land in France there are upward of four million and a 
half hectares of land that belong in common to various kinds 
of bodies, corporations, communes and villages. § Of this a 
considerable portion is forest, managed by the state, and which 
the interest of all in the country require should be kept as 
forest, and not divided or placed subject to individual control. 
Considerable discussion has arisen about throwing the village 
commons, not including the forest, on the market in small 
parcels. These commons have given the French peasant 
villager many advantages with which they are loath to part, 
especially as there is no sufficient guarantee that each peasant 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 295. 

f Ibid., page 304. J Ibid., page 297. I Ibid., page 310. 



BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 209 

would get an addition to his little farm proportioned to his 
share. An entire commune, made up of several villages, own 
these commons, and the authority of the whole is necessary for 
a division. These public holdings, therefore, remain as reserved 
tracts that may be called into individual ownership. In study- 
ing modern French society it must be remembered that it is 
less than a century since France escaped from the thraldom 
of the feudal system and enjoyed anything like liberty, and 
she has had much less than a half a century of tranquillity 
and industrial life. France suffered from the jealousy of the 
intensely aristocratic and despotic governments around her, 
and, perhaps, to some extent, from the spirit of violence called 
into birth by the effort to overthrow her oppressors. 

Belgium has a population of five million four hundred and 
eighty thousand,* and an area of eleven thousand three hun- 
dred and seventy-three square miles.f There are in Belgium 
sixty-three thousand small tenants whose farms average ten 
acres; two hundred and seventy thousand small freeholds, 
averaging eight acres; sixty-one thousand freeholds of larger 
size averaging forty acres and four thousand of what are con- 
sidered large estates, averaging one hundred and sixty acres.! 
Belgium and Holland are naturally very poor countries. 
Lavergne says " not a blade of grass grows in Flanders without 
manure." Flemish small farmers pick up grass and manure 
from the roadside. As far back as the times of the Romans 
the inhabitants on the borders of the Scheldt used to visit 
England to obtain marl to improve their infertile soil. 
"Whether reclaimed from the sea or converted into productive 
lands from barren sandy wastes, the low countries have cer- 
tainly been largely made by the people. In addition to the 
freeholders we have enumerated there are many other petty 
land holders and cottars. We are told that in 1846 the 

* MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics, page 356. 

t Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 40. 

X Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 271. 



210 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

enumerator's report showed seven hundred and fifty-eight 
thousand five hundred and twelve land proprietors and five 
million five hundred thousand parcels of land. In 1878, the 
enumeration showed one million one hundred and forty-three 
thousand seven hundred and thirty-three owners of land and 
six million four hundred and seventy-eight thousand three 
hundred and forty parcels or tracts owned by them.* It will 
thus be seen that small land owners have rapidly increased in 
Belgium. This progressive division of lands has been marked 
by an increase of rental and a steady advance in price of all 
lands in the country. The working capital of a farm in 
England is supposed to be from sixty to seventy-five dollars ; 
in Belgium it is estimated at one hundred dollars. The gross 
produce of a hectare is estimated at about one hundred and 
eighteen dollars, f In 1846, there were found fifty-five head 
of horned cattle, twelve horses and eight sheep on every one 
huudred hectares, superficial area. In England, not including 
Wales and Scotland, M. de Lavergne says there are thirty-three 
head of horned cattle, six horses and two hundred sheep per 
one hundred hectares, for the same year. The average rent 
of land in Flanders is, in dollars, about twenty dollars per 
hectare, nearly ten dollars per acre ; the selling price varies 
from (in dollars) six hundred and seventy-eight to seven hun- 
dred aud sixty dollars per hectare. Rents and selling prices 
have doubled since 1830, and such results have not been 
equaled in any other part of Europe.^ In the small farm 
provinces of Belgium, such as Flanders, the land is better 
cultivated, yields -more, has more agricultural capital and sus- 
tains a heavier population to the hundred hectares than in 
other portions of Belgium, there being of agricultural popula- 
tion in East Flanders, two hundred and sixty-three to one 
hundred and thirty-eight in Namur. Throughout Flanders 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 450. 

t Ibid., page 458. $ Ibid. 



LEASES AND METAYAGE. 211 

the spade is often used to prepare the soil. In Lombardy 
it has been computed that in two fields manured in the same 
way, one being worked with the spade and one being worked 
with the plough, the returns of the former would be to the 
latter as sixty-eight to twenty-eight.* The large farmers of 
Hainault and Namur do not buy manure, as they fancy they 
would ruin themselves by so doing. The Flemish small farm- 
ers invest from fifteen to twenty millions of francs in guano 
every year, and as much more in other manure, f Belgium 
contains many manufacturing cities, but in an aggregate popu- 
lation of nearly five millions and a half, eight hundred thou- 
sand people are directly engaged in agricultural pursuits. J In 
the portions of Belgium where the farming is carried on 
between landlord and tenant the usual form is a short lease, 
rarely over nine years. In the Middle Ages, when much of 
the land was held under the feudal system, the form for a long 
time was metayage, or a division of the crops between the land- 
lord and tenant, the former furnishing a part of the necessary 
capital. This has been abolished except in some of the polders 
along the coast of the German ocean. § Owing to the shortness 
of the leases the cultivator is not tempted to make improve- 
ments of which he would scarcely reap the benefits, and the 
landlords will not grant longer leases because they expect to 
raise the rent when the lease expires. The landlords reap all 
the benefits resulting from the progress made by the entire 
community in various directions. From the sixteenth century 
the payments to the landlords have chiefly been in money. The 
incoming tenant farmer takes possession of the land about the 
middle of March, the houses April 1st. The laws for the 
regulation of vacating and entering new leases differ in the 
different provinces and are generally complicated. In some 
localities experts are called on to appraise the standing crops 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 465. t Ibid., page 455. 

% Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 41. 
I Systems of Land Tenure, page 466. 



212 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

at the date of the change, and manure already on the ground.* 
The estimated average of food for a man, per day, in the Low 
Countries is, of bread thirty ounces, meat four ounces. By the 
same table we quote it stands in Italy, twenty-eight ounces of 
bread and two ounces of meat; Spain, twenty-six ounces 
of bread and three ounces of meat ; Sweden and Norway, 
twenty-two ounces of bread and three ounces of meat. Those 
we have quoted last are the lowest in Europe. In Britain it 
stands twenty-one ounces bread, seven ounces meat, and in the 
United States, twenty-six ounces bread and nine ounces meat.f 
Of course, such an approximation of food does not include the 
other articles of diet that may be used. The buildings in Bel- 
gium are superior in average value, taking the country through, 
to what they are in Austria and Spain,J where more aristo- 
cratic systems prevail. It will thus be seen that the Low 
Countries, much of which is naturally very poor land, have 
been rendered as productive as any in Europe, maintaining a 
very considerable population. The government is a constitu- 
tional monarchy; it is not a despotism, and has to consider to 
some extent the wishes of the people. The parliamentary 
bodies, a house and senate, are elective by voters who pay a 
certain amount of taxes. Any citizen of twenty-one who pays 
about eight dollars per annum taxes can vote for members 
of the lower house. This makes one in thirteen of the adult 
males a voter. ~No man is eligible to the senate who does not 
pay direct taxes amounting to about four hundred dollars. 
The senators receive no pay. In Belgium the power of the 
aristocracy is on the wane. Belgium is following the footsteps 
of France in the direction of small free holdings for the actual 
agriculturist. Her cities were long the pillars of popular 
rights against despotism, but the country is small, surrounded 
by despotic and encroaching monarchies, and has been inter- 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 491. 

f MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics, page 144. 

j Ibid., page 237. 



SPANISH AGRICULTUKE. 213 

fered with too much, from the outside, to give a fair indication 
of what it might have been if the people had been left to their 
own instinctive love of freedom. It has been the theatre of 
war for many a military despot. 

Spain is one of the countries suffering from landed aristoc- 
racy. There are in Spain six hundred and eighty thousand 
land owners, their estates average one hundred and fifty 
acres.* Four per cent, of the population own land not 
including lot owners. In Spain twenty-two millions of 
acres are cultivated and ninety millions uncultivated. The 
Spanish law gives facility to entails, which, with the pride 
and indolence of the aristocracy, led to the decay of hus- 
bandry, f The area of France in 1881 was 204,177 square 
miles; of Spain at the last enumeration, 1877, 197,767 
square miles.'| It will thus be seen that there is not much 
difference in the area; while the former maintains a popu- 
lation of thirty-seven millions and a half, the latter has a 
population of only sixteen millions and a half. The num- 
ber of head of cattle, including horses, cattle and sheep, stands 
in the ratio of seventeen in France to six in Spain, by Mul- 
hall's tables. § Although Spain was enriched by the plunder 
of Mexico and Peru, and may be said to have been for a long 
period the European dumping ground for the precious metals 
from the Americas, we find by the latest statistics there is of 
actual amount of coin in Spain and Portugal, forty millions 
of gold and seventeen millions of silver coin, and in France 
at the same date, one hundred and ninety-one millions in 
gold, and one hundred and ten millions in silver coin.|| These 
figures are in both cases of the English pounds sterling, as I 
have not, in quoting, changed, in this case, Mulhall's tables. 
The exports from Spain, by the latest tables, aggregate twenty- 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, 1884, page 267. 

f Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii., page 449. 

% Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 443. 

g Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 76. || Ibid., page 96. 



214 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

one million nine hundred thousand pounds sterling, from 
France, at the same date, one hundred and thirty-eight million 
seven hundred thousand pounds sterling. I quote from Mul- 
halPs tables of 1884. One more illustration : the estimated 
value of lands per inhabitant in France is seventy pounds 
sterling, and in Spain forty pounds. It is proper to state 
that estimated values of real estate, except when based on 
their actual productiveness, are not a safe criterion of prosper- 
ity. In France, by Mulhall's tables, the average wages stand 
per week, thirty shillings ; food, twelve shillings ; surplus, 
twelve shillings. In Spain, average wages, sixteen shillings ; 
food, ten shillings ; and surplus, six shillings. Laveleye says : 
" The estates of the grandees have destroyed the small land 
owners, whose place has been taken by bandits, smugglers, 
beggars and monks.* 

In Portugal the aforamento is a species of hereditary lease 
by w T hich the right of occupation is granted in consideration 
of an annual rent fixed, once for all, and which the landlord 
cannot increase, f The aforamento, formerly, was not divisible, 
and, on the death of the holder, one of the heirs must take it 
and reimburse the others ; or if they did not agree, the lease- 
hold or aforamento was sold, and the purchaser held it on the 
same conditions. If the hereditary tenant allows the land to 
deteriorate so as to reduce its value to over one-fifth of the 
capitalized rent, the landlord can eject him. Besides his rent, 
the landlord was entitled to a fee or duty whenever the lease 
changed hands, but, by the code of July, 1867, that, and all 
feudal dues and charges were done away with, except rent. 
The same code forbade bequeathing the sole right to one child 
or person designated, and the division of the lease in equal 
shares is made compulsory. The aforamento is of early date 
in Portuguese history, and was introduced by the monastic 
orders designed to be a check on feudalism. Besides the 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 479. f Ibid., page 487. 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 215 

noble and aristocratic landlords, private persons occasionally 
let land at fixed rent, and in consideration of fixity of tenure 
and rent, accept a certain cash sum by agreement, for these 
perpetuity privileges when so granted. It has been assumed 
that Portugal is more productive and prosperous than Spain, 
and the aforamento has been considered the cause. The 
government of Spain, although a constitutional monarchy, is 
largely aristocratic. The upper house or senate is of two 
classes : princes of the blood, grandees whose rent roll from 
land is equal to twelve thousand dollars, and a hundred sena- 
tors for life named by the king. One-half of the senate is 
elective ; but the electors must pay a laud tax of five dol- 
lars or an industrial tax of ten dollars. At the election of 
1879, there was one elector to every seventeen of the popula- 
tion.* Spain, politically, may be considered in a transitionary 
state, and if her people are able to assert and maintain repub- 
lican institutions, great reforms may be expected. Spain is 
the only nation in Europe, at present, that has not abolished 
slavery in her colonies. She has some accomplished statesmen, 
many of whom are, like Castellar, sympathetically republican. 
In Austria, including Hungary, there are eleven thousand 
noble land owners whose estates, estimated together, average 
five thousand two hundred acres, the aggregate owned 
by them being sixty-two millions of acres. There are also 
three million, four hundred and twenty thousand smaller 
peasant or farmer land owners, the average acreage of whose 
estates is twenty-three acres.f Although none of the latter 
class are amoug the nobility, many of them may be styled 
landed gentry. There is, therefore, quite a large body of 
aristocrats, who derive an income from the land claimed by 
them, and are in this way a burden on the agricultural labor- 
ers of the country. The Austrian empire, exclusive of her 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 435. 
f Mnl hall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 271. 



216 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

Turkish provinces, has an area of two hundred and forty 
thousand nine hundred and forty-two English square miles, 
and a population, at the last census of December, 1880, of 
thirty-seven million eight hundred and eighty-three thousand 
two hundred and twenty-six. In Austria proper, the density 
of the population is about one hundred and ninety-one to the 
square mile, and in the rest of the empire about one hundred 
and thirty-five to the square mile.* In Austria, two million 
two hundred and seventy-five thousand one hundred and 
seventeen are returned as farming their own lands, much of it by 
hired labor ; ninety thousand and thirty-six as tenant farmers, 
and three million seven hundred and thirty-nine thousand 
four hundred and twenty-one as farm laborers. In all, some 
six millions of people engaged one way and another in 
agriculture, with their families, making nearly sixty per 
cent, of the entire population. f Of the total area of Austria- 
Hungary, the acreage in crops is forty-six million one hun- 
dred and eight thousand and seventy ; woods and forests, 
twenty-three million two hundred and eighty thousand four 
hundred and twelve acres ; meadows and perennial pastures, 
eleven million three hundred and ten thousand five hundred 
and thirty-three acres. 

The amount of gold and silver coin in Great Britain for 
each inhabitant is about twenty dollars ; in France, forty dol- 
lars, and in Austria, a little over two dollars and fifty cents. 
Coin is not a correct indication of wealth, however. In 1867, 
Edward Young informs us that agricultural laborers in Aus- 
tria received per year, as wages, from fourteen dollars and 
forty cents to nineteen dollars and twenty cents, with board. 
Women, from four dollars and eighty cents to fourteen dollars 
and forty cents, with board, but adds that wages have risen 
since then. J In 1870, the daily wages of laborers in factories 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 21. f Ibid., page 24. 

% Young's Labor in Europe, page 600. 



WAGES AND FEMALE LABOR. 217 

was from twenty-two to forty-eight cents per day, without 
board, the working hours being from twelve to thirteen per 
day. Wages have since risen twenty per cent.* Two-thirds 
of the commerce of the country is carried on with Germany. 
A good journeyman shoemaker earns about ninety-six cents 
a day, and a good joiner, from one dollar twenty to one dollar 
and forty-four cents. Inferior bakers earn about seventy-two 
cents a week, and board, and head workmen, one dollar and 
sixty-eight cents per week, with board. f Many of the arti- 
sans and laborers are boarded by their employers. The con- 
dition of agricultural laborers generally is not as good as in 
many European countries. When it is considered that in an 
agricultural population of six million nearly four million 
are mere laborers, the helpless condition of the lower orders 
may be inferred. The large body of nobles and still larger 
body of petty landed aristocrats may be said to consume sub- 
stantially from one-half to one-third of all the agricultural 
production. There are two elements in the population, the 
Eastern or Sclavic, having originally different views of land 
tenure, but all subjected to the dominant idea produced by 
feudalism. To make matters worse, the condition of women 
in Austria is deplorable. All the most menial work in 
Vienna is done by women, such as cleaning and sweeping 
the streets, gathering garbage, carrying water, pumping from 
the cisterns to the upper stories of houses, and even carrying 
mortar and handling bricks.J These are of all ages, young, 
middle-aged and old, their wages being about forty-eight 
cents per day, without board. A comparative review of the 
occupations of the sexes shows that in the industries, manu- 
factures, agriculture, trade, commerce, science, art, etc., there 
are three million twenty-seven thousand and four females 
engaged, and three million six hundred and twelve thousand 



* Young's Labor in Europe, page 601. f Ibid., page 604. 

X Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 605. 
1^ 



218 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

two hundred and twenty-seven males. Although women 
almost equally share the grades of labor, we find of inde- 
pendent persons, property owners, factors, churchmen, pro- 
prietors, only nine hundred and forty-nine thousand two 
hundred and sixty-five females, to two million nine hundred 
and nineteen thousand three hundred and fifty-four males.* 
The hours of female labor in Austria are also greater than 
those of male laborers, while the wages are from fifty to twenty- 
five per cent. less. The greater portion of field labor and labor 
in factories, mills and mines falls on women. The manner 
of paying her explains her subordinate position. What is 
left of the empire, Austria proper and Hungary, have each 
a parliamentary body, the two united in the person of the 
sovereign. There are seventeen provincial diets. The poor 
and laboring people have little or no part in these govern- 
ments. The government in all its parts is essentially aristo- 
cratic, f its powers arising from landed aristocracy and prop- 
erty qualifications. Austria offers a fine field for the political 
reformer and the advocate of woman's rights. 

Italy at the present time possesses a constitutional govern- 
ment which is largely aristocratical, with the elective part 
based on property qualifications. The executive power belongs 
to the king, who also practically creates the highest parlia- 
mentary body, the senate. That body consists of princes of 
the royal family, and of distinguished persons who have held 
office, been noted for scientific or literary ability, or who pay 
an annual tax equal to six hundred dollars. These are nomi- 
nated by the king for life. The lower house of deputies is 
elected by male citizens of twenty-one who can read and write, 
and who pay taxes to the amount of four dollars; sixty-one 
per cent, of adult males voted at the election of 1882. J 
Neither senators nor deputies receive any pay but are allowed 

* United States Consular Keports, 1885, page 156. 

f Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 7. J Ibid., page 316. 



ITALY. 219 

to travel free on railroads and steamboat lines. By the census 
of December, 1881, the total population of Italy was found to 
be twenty-eight million four hundred and fifty-nine thousand 
six hundred and twenty-eight, living on an area of one hundred 
and fourteen thousand four hundred and ten English square 
miles, being two hundred and thirty -four persons to the square 
mile. In Italy there are twenty-seven million acres cultivated 
land and forty-one million acres uncultivated.* Of her popu- 
lation, one million eight hundred and sixty-five thousand 
persons own land, the average acreage of whose estates is 
thirty-five acres and the average value being nearly two 
thousand one hundred dollars. This list of land owners is 
from Mulhall's tables, and does not include cottars or persons 
owning less than five acres. The average value of the culti- 
vated land is about one hundred and five dollars per acre. 
In Lombardy and Piedmont there are one million one hun- 
dred and eighty thousand separate estates averaging sixteen 
acres, embracing an aggregate of nineteen million acres. In 
Sicily there are four hundred and ten thousand estates aver- 
aging forty acres, and aggregating sixteen million acres. 
Lombardy, especially, is the small farm region, and is the best 
cultivated in Italy, and the people are more comfortably 
situated. Tuscany and Romagna, with an aggregate acreage 
of sixteen million, have only one hundred and forty-five 
thousand estates, which average one huudred and ten acres, 
and Naples one hundred and twenty thousand estates, averaging 
one hundred and eighty acres and aggregating twenty-one 
million acres, f One million one hundred and forty thousand 
proprietors farm thirty-three million acres ; one million two 
hundred and forty-eight thousand metayers cultivate eighteen 
million acres on a division of crops with the owners, and 
three hundred and ten thousand tenants cultivate twenty mil- 
lion acres. Where the metayer system exists the state of 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266. f Ibid., page 270. 



220 * EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

agriculture and the condition of the actual laborers and culti- 
vators stand lowest. Tenants with leases stand next. The 
regions tilled by the proprietors are not only the most pros- 
perous and productive, but the people are in more comfortable 
circumstances. The average rent, where it is not on the 
metayer system of a division of crops, is from two to three 
dollars per acre. 

The rate of laborers' wages in Italy is the lowest in 
Europe.* They eat less animal food than the laborers of any 
country in Europe, Mulhall giving per diem twenty-eight 
ounces of bread and two ounces of animal food as the average. f 
Many of the poor Italian laborers do not eat animal food 
except on rare occasions. The climate has, of course, some- 
thing to do with this, and they subsist largely on vegetables 
and fruit. The diet of the laborers of Piedmont is given by 
the vice consul as — " Morning meal, vegetable soup ; the families 
of the higher classes of workmen have coifee and milk. Dinner, 
soup, bread and cheese, or potatoes and codfish. Sapper, which 
is the principal meal, bread, wine, macaroni or vegetable stew. 
Meat is a rarity and a luxury." { The same authority gives 
the rate of wages in Turin for a week's work of sixty 
hours : Bricklayers, $4.20 ; masons, $3.60 ; plasterers, $5.04 ; 
roofers, $4.20 ; plumbers, $3.60 ; carpenters, $4.00 ; bakers, 
$4.00 ; blacksmiths, $3.60 ; brickmakers, $5.00, and brewers, 
$8.00; cabinet makers, $3.40; cigar makers, $3.00; hod car- 
riers and tenders, $1.70 per week; draymen and teamsters, 
$1.50; teachers in public schools, $5.00. Married women 
very seldom work in factories or at any out-door employment. 
The wages of female employees is generally about one-half 
those of the male employees. The American system of board- 
ing is never practiced, everybody keeps house. § The principal 

* United States Consular Reports, 1885, page 149. 
fMulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 144. 
X United States Consular Reports, page 151. 
§ Young's Labor in Europe, page 631. 



SWITZERLAND AND DENMARK. 221 

exports are silk, wine, olive oil, fruit, hemp and cotton.* The 
condition of Italy is not so favorable to the laboring man as 
France or several other countries in Europe. Without having 
much more than half the area of Spain it has nearly twice the 
population. The conditions of land tenure are not favorable 
to the laboring classes. Large portions of what is produced 
are consumed by privileged idlers. Politically, Italy is in a 
transition state. Fettered by the burdens of bygone ages, her 
people have evinced fresh aspirations for freedom. 

Switzerland, although a small mountain region, is one of 
the most prosperous in Europe so far as the laborers are con- 
cerned. Laveleye asks why the Swiss peasant is so much 
more substantially fed than some of his neighbors, and answers 
because the Swiss is nearly always the owner of the soil he 
cultivates.f Swiss working people enjoy full political rights 
and are taxed like others. Wage workers in Switzerland, 
however, are required to be at once laborious and denying, and 
are able to save but little, 

Denmark has a population of one million nine hundred and 
sixty-nine thousand and thirty-nine, living on an area of thir- 
teen thousand seven hundred and eighty-four square miles. 
The average density is one hundred and forty-three to the 
square mile. Of land owners there are in this small territory 
five hundred and fifty, whose estates average two thousand 
five hundred acres, holding among them one million three 
hundred and eighty thousand acres. Persons of the rank of 
farmers number one thousand one hundred and eighty, these 
also being to some extent a privileged class. Their estates 
average three thousand acres, making an aggregate of three 
hundred and sixty thousand acres. Theu there are sixty-nine 
thousand one hundred of what are styled "bondsmen," or 
farmers, with an average of sixty acres, aggregating four million 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 340. 
f Systems of Land Tenure, page 450. 



222 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

two hundred thousand. " Huusmen," a species of laboring 
tenant holder, a relic of feudalism, whose holdings average 
four acres. 

In Sweden the population in 1883 was four million six 
hundred and three thousand five hundred and ninety-six, the 
area, one hundred and seventy thousand nine hundred and 
seventy-nine,* being more than four-fifths the size of France, 
with about one-sixth of the population. Sweden has two 
thousand six hundred and fifty nobles, who have estates aver- 
aging fourteen thousand acres, aggregating thirty-eight million 
acres. There are one hundred and ninety-one thousand free- 
holders whose estates average two hundred acres and forty 
thousand tenants, who each occupy lands averaging four hun- 
dred acres, f The average price of land is placed by Mulhall 
at sixty dollars per acre, and the rent at five English shillings, 
about a dollar and five cents per acre. 

Norway contains three millions of acres of cultivated and 
seventy million acres uncultivated land. In fact there is a 
great deal of poor and waste land in all the Scandinavian 
countries. 

Mr. Ryder, consul to Denmark, estimates the daily expense 
of a family of four persons, a laborer, his wife and two children : 
Breakfast and supper, four pounds bread, one-fifth pound lard, 
one-sixth pound cheese, one-quarter pound sugar, one-four- 
teenth pound coffee and milk, the whole costing nineteen cents. 
Dinner, which consists of milk porridge, fish and potatoes, or 
pea soup with pork, about fifteen cents, or thirty-four cents 
per diem, one hundred and twenty-four dollars per year.J 
He says the condition of the best paid laborers is " fairly com- 
fortable," that of the agricultural laborers one of economy and 
self denial. This may be judged from his table, in which he 
gives the expense and income of a laborer and his family for 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 461. 
f MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics, page 271. 
% United States Consular Keports, 1885, page 165. 



SCANDINAVIA. 223 

a year: rent, $30; food, $123.36; clothing, $10; fuel and 
light, $12.10; tobacco and spirits, $6.70; total expenses, 
$183.60; total income, $ 188.00. Balance for incidentals, 
$4.40. He gives four families, of which the above is the 
lowest ; for the highest he gives an expenditure of $254.60 
and an income of $268.40. The married women attend to 
their domestic affairs usually, but at times work in the field or 
shops as the single women do. 

The common farmers of Norway till the soil themselves 
with the assistance of their tenants, a class called " huusmen." * 
These hire from the farmer a patch of land that will keep one 
or two cows and a few sheep, for which, and their humble 
cot, they pay a certain number of day's work in each season 
of the year. They are so much in the power of the owners 
of the land that they cannot make reasonable bargains for the 
payment of rent in money. At home they and their families 
live chiefly on hominy and barley bread. They scarcely 
have meat, except, perhaps, at Christmas. Besides the 
" huusmen," there are agricultural laborers, whose condition, * 
however, is perhaps even better than the " huusmen." f Young 
places the wages of agricultural laborers, in 1872, at from 
one dollar and twenty-six to one dollar and ninety-two cents 
per week ; carpenters and blacksmiths, three dollars and 
eighty-seven cents ; weavers in the cotton mills, from five 
dollars and thirty-two, to six dollars and forty cents.J Wages 
have since risen. 

It will be observed that the Scandinavian countries are, to 
a considerable extent, inhospitable and unproductive, and do 
not maintain a dense population, only seven and three-tenths 
per cent, of the land being under cultivation. Manufacturing 
interests are neither extensive nor considerable. About one- 
half of the country is covered by forests, timber being one of 

* Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 696. 

t Ibid. % Ibid., page 693. 



221 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

the principal exports. The farmer land holders, who are a 
kind of country gentlemen, work on their farms, and even 
the petty nobles occasionally work on their estates, but the 
bulk of the labor is performed by men who have little interest in 
the soil, and are only connected with it by rent. In 1882, two 
hundred and twenty-four thousand three hundred and ninety- 
two persons were returned as paupers, or four and nine-tenths 
per cent, of the population.* With the exception of sixteen 
thousand four hundred and twelve Finns, six thousand six 
hundred Laps, and about twelve thousand persons of foreign 
birth, the Swedish population is entirely of the Scandinavian 
branch of the Teutonic family. In 1860 the emigrants from 
Sweden to countries beyond Europe were only three hundred 
and forty-eight. In 1865 the number rose to six thousand 
six hundred and ninety-one; in 1868, to twenty-seven thou- 
sand and twenty-four; in 1869, to thirty-nine thousand and 
sixty- four. The emigration fell, in 1870, to twenty thousand 
and three, and to seven thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
one in 1877. In 1879 it was forty-two thousand one hun- 
dred and nine ; in 1880, forty-five thousand nine hundred 
and ninety-two; in 1882, fifty thousand one hundred and 
seventy-six, and in 1883, twenty-nine thousand four hundred 
and ninety. Over four-fifths of these emigrants went to the 
United States. It is fair to charge the monopolization of the 
land by privileged classes with being the leading cause of the 
condition of the people. The great body of workers are not 
interested in improving the country; but the people that overran 
Russia, dictated terms to France, twice overran England, and 
held great stretches of the American coast in early times, are 
not destitute of their ancient nerve. 

The Prussia of to-day is largely a political creation, and 
the modern German empire is one of the first great powers in 
the world. Germany comprises four kingdoms, six grand 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 462. 



GERMANY. 225 

duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free cities, 
Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen, and Alsace-Lorraine. The 
Imperial throne has always been filled by election, but it or 
its rulers have a tendency to the hereditary principle. Origi- 
nally, the election was by all the princes and peers of the 
Reich, but the mode was changed in the fourteenth century, 
when a limited number, seven, afterward changed to nine, 
assumed the privilege. The old empire was overthrown by 
Napoleon, in 1806. The present emperor was elected by the 
vote of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation. 

The area of the twenty-five states is two hundred and 
twelve thousand and twenty-eight English square miles, as 
agaiust two hundred and four thousand one hundred and 
seventy-seven of France, and two hundred and forty thousand 
nine hundred and forty- two of Austria-Hungary. Before 
Germany obtained Alsace-Lorraine, France was the largest. 
The population of the German Empire, December 1st, 1880, 
was forty-five million two hundred and thirty-four thousand 
and sixty-one.* Not including cottars or persons owning less 
than five acres, there are, in Germany, two million four hun- 
dred and thirty-six thousand persons owning land ; the land 
owners being five per cent, of the population. The average 
tracts of the landlords given is only thirty-seven acres, but 
included in that there are some very considerable estates. 
The average value, if they had all the same amount, would be 
about four thousand dollars. f In the German Empire sixty- 
eight millions of acres are cultivated, and fifty-seven million 
acres uncultivated, which is a large average of cultivated land, 
although not so large as in France. The price of cultivated 
land per acre is about one hundred and twenty-five dollars in 
our money. J 

The original Teutonic community was a body of men who 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 114. 

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 267. J Ibid., page 266. 



226 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

had property in common, among whom any private right or 
interest in land was connected with public duty or military 
service. The geographical area was marked out or divided 
into three marks ; first, the common or folcland ; second, the 
arable mark cut out of the common mark and apportioned 
in equal lots, and then the town or village mark, cut up into 
separate lots.* The individual or marksman stoodjn a three- 
fold relation to the land, a joint proprietor of the common 
land, an allottee in the arable mark and a householder in the 
township. There was, therefore, under restriction, an inherit- 
ance he could call his own in the arable or tillable land, 
although he was compelled to occupy and cultivate it, and the 
community determined the mode of cultivation ; his cattle 
grazed on the common pasture, and he cut timber from the 
public forest. In his dwelling-house and its appurtenances 
he was absolute lord and master. In another chapter we 
have shown how, in nearly all the Teutonic nations, the an- 
cient system of equal freeholds was changed, and the lands 
largely passed into the hands of the lords. In Germany, 
feudal tenure villeinage, with their accompaniments, came down, 
to the beginning of this century. Prussia made three great 
efforts to escape from them, and it endeavored to return to 
free ownership, but with unequal possession.^ The first step 
was taken in 1807, by the abolition of villeinage in so far as 
it affected the personal status of the villein. At that time it 
must be remembered that all the land in Prussia consisted of 
the few provinces left it by the peace of Tilsit, which was 
distributed among three classes, nobles, peasants and burghers.. 
The community was composed of different parties. Some had 
been formerly slaves, gradually ascending to the peasant class ; 
some had been freeholders and had sunk to villeinage ; others 
held what had been claimed as crown lands by paying an 
annual service or fee ; some had been dispossessed by the 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 351. f Ibid., page 361. 



PRUSSIAN LAND REFORM. 227 

nobles. In the worst form of the villein tenure in Germany, 
the peasant could be held to unlimited service. At his death 
the whole or the large part of the personal estate fell to the 
lord ; his children could not marry without the lord's consent, 
and could be kept an unlimited number of years as personal 
servants. The peasant could be whipped, but his life was 
protected.* As is usually the case, the calamities of kings 
and nations is the crucible from which emerges slowly the 
rights of the people. Frederick the Great, in his terrible 
struggles to maintain and build up Prussia, found it necessary 
to recognize to some extent the rights or claims of the culti- 
vator. With all his despotic qualities he undoubtedly im- 
proved their condition. This only seemed to hasten inevitable 
changes. At the time of the reformation the people had 
endeavored to regain their rights to the land. Feudalism in 
its w r orst form was dead, and circumstances made its final 
overthrow indispensable. The battle of Jena was not, for 
Prussia, an unmixed calamity. An agrarian spirit was in the 
air, and not only battles but revolution. The edict of Freder- 
ick Wiiliam, on October 9th, 1807, was ushered in by a liberal 
allowance of philosophical " whereases," but the substance was, 
first, providing for the free exchange of property; second, 
freedom in regard to occupation ; third, divisibility of prop- 
erty; fourth, power of granting leases; fifth, extinction 
and consolidation of peasant holdings ; sixth, facilities for 
mortgaging ; seventh, limited entails ; eighth, abolition of 
villeinage. Although M. Morier is inclined to give these 
events more importance than they are entitled to, they initi- 
ated rather than accomplished important changes. Prussia 
had been scourged by war and stripped of resources : whole 
villages were lying in ashes. f France had some time before 
got rid of her aristocratic land holders by a much less 
elaborate and a much more conclusive plan. Those who 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 365, f Ibid., page 374. 



228 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

assisted the weak Frederick William in 1807, were certainly 
neither communists nor democrats. They were admirers of 
the English system rather than the French. The first great 
purpose was to make land a chattel, and their idea of a model 
farm was a large one with its landlord, supervising farmer, 
and laborers. They relieved the German laborer or villein 
of the burden of feudal dues, but as these had largely gone 
into disrepute some time before, this was not so great a boon. 
The edict assumed that the noble landlords had certain rights 
in the soil, the tenant or villein had merely a sort of pre- 
emptive right of use. Instead of yielding service under the 
system of feudal tenure, to the lord, the peasant was author- 
ized to buy and pay indemnity to the lord for what the latter 
was thus to relinquish. In this way the personal right of the 
lord in the property or estate was recognized, although he really 
had no right to it. It was essentially a recognition of the lord 
of the manor's right to the property. If the liberated villein 
had no money, which was probable, he could buy, get deeds 
and give a mortgage on the premises he used, and thus pay 
interest instead of rent or service. As one -half the improve- 
ments in the country had been destroyed or laid waste by 
war, the noble landlords, if their claim to title to the land 
was good, should have been placed under obligation to put 
the farms on which the villein furnished them rent into 
serviceable shape. In making everything salable, moreover, 
there was danger that the peasant small holdings would be 
swallowed up by capitalists. On the several questions involved 
the commissioners and the country at large were divided. To 
prevent the extinction of peasant holdings, instructions were 
sent to the provincial governments to give permission for such 
extinctions under restrictions and only in cases where it was 
"new peasant land," or land so created within fifty years, and 
even in such instances half the land so purchased or exchanged 
must be made into large peasant holdings, and either given in 
fee to peasant holders or let in perpetual leases. The political 



COMPOUNDING FEUDAL PRIVILEGES. 229 

economists in these proceedings, as has been said, were men 
of English ideas. It is generally believed, and justly, that 
where there is a free exchange of land, the capitalists and large 
holders will gradually swallow up the small holdings, unless 
there is a law of compulsory division as in France. In point 
of fact, the edict of 1807 did not succeed in very vitally 
changing the form of land tenure in Prussia. It disturbed 
rather than settled questions. The lord was still owner of the 
peasant's land, but had not the right to enforce possession or 
eject the peasant, and the peasant was free but not master of 
his own labor.* To cure these evils the edicts or legislation 
of 1811 were promulgated. They consisted of two great 
edicts, one to regulate the relations between the lords and the 
peasants and the other purported to be an " edict for the better 
cultivation of the land." The first edict had two general 
parts. The one considered the rights of the landlord, the 
lord's right of ownership, his claim to service, dues in money 
and kind, dead stock on the farms, easements or servitudes on 
the land held. The rights of the tenant were claims to assist- 
ance in case of misfortune, right to gather wood and other 
forest rights, claims for repairs on buildings, pasturage on 
demesne lands or forests.f The commission as a basis laid 
down, that in case of hereditary holdings neither the service 
nor the dues could be increased and that they must be lowered 
if the holder could not subsist at their actual rate. That the 
holding must be kept in condition so that the proceeds could 
pay its dues to the state. Here a distinction is drawn between 
the claims of the state and the manor. As has been shown, 
the rights of the manor were originally the rights of the state, 
or the " eminent domain " for defense. Here we have what 
had in fact been established long before, the claim of the state 
to tax or impose burdens, "eminent domain," and the claim 
of the lord or the ownership of the manor. This merely gave 



* Systems of Land Tenure, page 378. f Ibid., page 377. 

20 



230 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

the claim of the state precedence. By the terms of the edict, 
two years were given to the lords and the cultivators, the 
vassals and tenants, whatever their relative rights might be, 
to adjust their differences. These were to be adjusted on the 
basis that the lords should have absolute possession of one- 
third of the old arable mark and one-third of the common 
land. For the remainder the peasant w 7 as to indemnify the 
lord, which might take the shape of indemnity of capital, 
corn or money rent. This has been styled " the agrarian legis- 
lation of Prussia," and in so far as it interfered with the 
peasant's right to the land he lived on, it was agrarian enough. 
It gave the lord the absolute disposal of one-third of what 
was really public property, and the right to rent the remainder 
unless somebody could buy it from him. For the use of his 
cot the peasant was to pay ten days' labor with a team, or if he 
had no team, ten days' labor of a man and also of a woman. 
Where corn rents were not paid punctually the lord of the 
manor could exact services instead. One of the rights insisted 
on by the political economists was the unlimited right of dis- 
posal. Parents were permitted to divide their estate among 
their children as they saw fit. Facilities were also given for 
sales and foreclosures on the principle that if a man had not 
the means or was unable properly to develop the land, it was 
better that he should sell to some one who was. 

The Prussian legislation of 1850 has been considered more 
radical, but acted essentially on the same plan. The revolu- 
tions or insurrections of 1848 had swept over Europe, and 
although the despotic rulers and aristocrats had crushed them, 
there was still a Avholesome admonition conveyed by them. 
By the legislation of 1850 all hereditary holders became pro- 
prietors, and the overlordship of the lord of the manor was 
abrogated. These proprietors, however, or the land they 
occupied, were held liable for an equivalent of dues and service, 
which in fact became rent. The land was capitalized at 
eighteen years' rent, and a species of banks called a rent banks," 



GERMAN RENT AND WAGES. 231 

were created. The government merely lent its credit to put 
this rent or burden in a tax shape, the lord getting indemnity 
besides his third on ownership. In France, England and 
Germany, a great conflict had been going on between the lord, 
or the manor , and the peasant. In England the manor won, 
the peasant lost. In France the peasant won, the manor lost. 
In Germany it was a drawn game, the stakes were divided ; * 
but it is easy to see that the lord had the advantage, and the 
fruits of the most of his exactions and encroachments for ages 
were conceded to him. In the German empire the instincts 
of the people are for small and allodial holdings, the interest 
of the capitalists for large holdings. It is claimed that the 
number of cultivating holders has not diminished under the 
chattelization of land. It is too soon to judge it yet, and in 
any event the cultivating holders do not increase. The rent 
of land in Germany averages four dollars and a half per 
acre,f more than twice as much as in Austria and three times as 
much as in Spain and Portugal or Sweden, and although Italy 
is much more densely populated than Germany, the rent stands 
eighteen in Germany to eleven in Italy. In some parts of Ger- 
many agricultural laborers' wages are for a man, $67.30, and a 
woman, $30 per year, with board ; day laborer, with board, 
forty cents, harvest labor, without board, eighty cents per day. % 
The general trades, by the same authority, stand per week of 
sixty hours : Bricklayers, $4.15 ; masons, the same, that is 
without board; carpenters are $4.75; cabinet makers, $4.91 ; 
hod carriers, $3.21 ; tenders, $2.54. In Britain the wages are 
a little higher. Women perform many menial tasks. Consul 
Mason, at Dresden, mentions teams of a woman and a dog 
pulling light carts with very considerable loads. § As a rule 
the women are not so well paid as the men. 

In presenting the condition of land tenure in modern Europe, 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 389. 

tMulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266. 

\ United States Consular Beports, 1885, page 9. \ Ibid., page 16. 



232 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES. 

it will be seen that in nearly all the states of Europe there is 
a large and aristocratic class that exacts, in the shape of rent, 
a very considerable portion of what is produced by the labor- 
ing classes. The more extravagant the landlords, the greater 
their exactions from the producers, even to the extent in many 
cases of crippling and impeding production. Public burdens 
and the defense of the country are not now defrayed from this 
rent, but all property, production and consumption are taxed. 
Enormous armies are maintained by the governments of these 
countries, ostensibly as a menace to each other, but chiefly to 
their disaffected subjects. The power of government is largely 
in the hands of landowners, and they exercise it to protect 
their own interests. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE BKITISH EMPIEE. 

Cultivated and uncultivated areas — Acreocracy-— Extent and value of aris- 
tocratic holdings — Number of land owners — Urban and country popula- 
tion — Rent during six hundred years — Prices of wheat and beef- 
Aristocratic debts saddled on the people — Primogeniture and the younger 
sons — Loss of cottage and pasture privileges by workingmen — Law of 
parish settlement — Food and wages — No law to secure a tenant for his 
improvements — A "retired tenant farmer" — Board and wages three 
centuries ago— Prices — Watt Tyler — Growth of cities— Manufacture and 
commerce — Mr. Giffen searching for the laborer's wealth — Mallock — 
Modern wages — Houses and food — Ireland — Arthur Young — Subjection 
of Ireland — Landlords in triplicate — Noblemen, perpetual land holders, 
middlemen and cultivators — Eents in Ireland — Eedpath — Tenants and 
evictions — Number of land proprietors — Battersby and compensation — 
Argyle and Henry George — The duke as a philosopher and as a sheep 
raiser — Defense of British aristocracy— Agricultural decadence — Growth 
of manufactures and commerce — Food produced and food imported — 
Rival aristocracy of money. 

In the third chapter we attempted to show how the aristo- 
cratic owners of land in Europe had succeeded in fastening 
themselves, like Sin bad the Sailor's Old Man of the Moun- 
tain, on the shoulders of the laborers of these nations. "Who 
are these land owuers ? Mulhall says that one hundred and 
eighty thousand persons own land in the United Kingdom of 
Great Britain.* The same authority gives the average size 
of estates at three hundred and ninety acres, and the average 
value of the estates at nine thousand six hundred pounds. 
The number of landholders to the whole population being 
half of one per cent. His table does not include cottars or 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 267. 

233 



234 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

those owning less than five acres. The cultivated area of 
Great Britain is stated to be forty-seven millions of acres, and 
twenty-three million acres are uncultivated.* The average 
value of the cultivated land is thirty-three pounds per acre, 
about one hundred and sixty dollars. The value of the land 
in Britain, if equally divided, would be forty-eight pounds, or 
two hundred and thirty-two dollars to each man, woman and 
child. Not being divided equally, we find that twenty-three 
noblemen, dukes, earls, marquises and lords have estates 
exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand acres.f As, for 
example, the Duke of Argyle has one hundred and seventy- 
five thousand acres ; Lord Middleton, one million six thou- 
sand acres (one seventieth part of the entire kingdom); the 
Duke of Sutherland, one million three hundred and fifty- 
eight thousand acres, or nearly one-fiftieth part of the king- 
dom. Eighteen noblemen have annual rentals exceeding one 
hundred thousand pounds, or five hundred thousand dollars, 
derived from the proceeds of lands. The annual rent roll, 
for instance, of the Duke of Norfolk, is two hundred and 
seventy thousand pounds, upwards of one million three hun- 
dred and thirty thousand dollars. The Marquis of Bute has 
a rent roll of two hundred and thirty-two thousand pounds, 
the Duke of Buccleuch, two hundred and thirty-one thousand 
pounds, and the Duke of Northumberland, of one hundred 
and seventy-six thousand pounds. Besides these almost royal 
revenues, derived from political assignments of the soil, we 
find, by reference to John Bateman's abridgment of the 
Domesday book, that in England and Wales, alone, there are 
fifteen hundred and thirty-six persons who own not less than 
three thousand acres, J and that only in a few cases does the rent 
roll of these estates fall short of three thousand pounds (fifteen 
thousand dollars), and from that amount, running up to the 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266. t Ibid., page 272. 

% Acreocracy of England. 



ARISTOCRATIC LIEN ON LABOR. 235 

rent roll of the Duke of Norfolk. Mr. Bateman only gives 
the rent roll of the rural estates. By examining his work it 
will be seen that several estates are often in the hands of one 
person, and in this way it appears that several enumerators 
count the separate estates and thus make the number of land 
owners much greater than it really is. Among the noble 
land owners, although not the largest, we recognize some 
names connected with the government. Thus, the Marquis 
of Salisbury has twenty thousand two hundred and seventy- 
two acres, and a rent roll from them of thirty-three thousand 
four hundred and thirteen pounds,* nearly four times the 
salary paid to the president of the United States, and this tax 
on the land is supposed to be the property of the Marquis, 
and all who may come after him, without the slightest refer- 
ence to the performance of any public duty. The Duke of 
Bedford has eighty-seven thousand five hundred and seven 
acres, with a rent roll of one hundred and forty-one thousand 
five hundred and forty-nine pounds, f about seven hundred 
thousand dollars per annum. Earl Lonsdale has sixty-seven 
thousand nine hundred and fifty acres, producing a rent 
roll of seventy-one thousand two hundred and ten pounds. 
The Duke of Portland's acres and rent roll are about the 
same amount. 

In addition to the fifteen hundred and thirty-six aristocratic 
land owners of England and Wales, given by Mr. Bateman 
as possessing not less than three thousand acres, there is a 
very considerable number more, who, while they fall below 
that standard, still have very extensive estates, sufficient 
to place them independent of exertion, with incomes derived 
from the natural resources of the country, varying from four 
or five thousand, to fifty thousand dollars per annum. It 
will not make the matter much clearer to swell the list of 
aristocratic names, or enumerate the estates and demesnes of 

* Acreocracy of England, page 170. f.Ibid., page 14. 



236 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

princes, knights or lords. From the figures given, the reader 
can form some kind of an estimate of the fearful mortgage 
laid on the shoulders of the laborers of England. In no 
country in Europe are there so few land holders as in the 
British Empire. Mr. Broderick says : " The number of agri- 
cultural land owners was never so small and the population 
so large." * Besides the noble land owners, there is an army 
of middlemen, factors, leasing farmers and their adjuncts.' 
The agricultural system of Britain is composed, first, of aris- 
tocratic landlords, who, under the law, deduct so much an 
acre from the producers ; second, the leasing or contracting 
farmers, who employ a capital in the work of agriculture, and 
make their profit between the rent, the interest they pay the 
money lenders, and the price they pay for labor ; third, the 
laborers, who get what the leasers and middlemen choose to 
pay them, and of whom it is only necessary to say that they 
are very poor and dependent. 

During the reign of William the Conqueror, when there 
were about two million people in England and Wales, there 
were about one hundred and seventy thousand land owners. 
Now, when there are twenty millions of people in England 
and Wales, there are, according to Mr. Broderick, less than 
one hundred and fifty thousand who own more than an acre 
and a half, and two thousand two hundred and fifty persons 
own nearly one-half of the enclosed portion of England and 
Wales. f There is a real or apparent discrepancy between 
Mr. Mulhall and Hon. George C. Broderick. A series of 
official reports, published in 1875 and 1876, gives a larger 
number of land proprietors than is given elsewhere. The 
owners of less than an acre (lot owners outside the city of 
London, mostly) were eight hundred and fifty-two thousand 
four hundred and sixty -eight. Of these seven hundred and 
three thousand two hundred and eighty-nine were in England 

■* Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 9. f Ibid. 



LAND AND LOT OWNERS. 237 

and Wales ; one hundred and thirteen thousand and five in 
Scotland, and thirty-six thousand one hundred and fourteen 
in Ireland. These gave of owners above an acre in England 
and Wales, two hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hun- 
dred and forty-seven ; in Scotland, nineteen thousand two 
hundred and twenty-five ; and in Ireland, thirty-two thousand 
six hundred and fourteen.* The discrepancy between this 
and the other tables arises from two causes. In the first 
place the line between urban and rural is in these tables 
drawn at an acre, while in the others it is an acre and a half. 
It is also admitted that it was partly caused by enumerating 
the tracts rather than the owners, several of which belonged 
to one owner. In France the urban or city population is a 
small fraction over twenty-four per cent.f and the rural up- 
ward of seventy-five per cent. In England, on the other 
hand, nearly two-thirds of the entire population are urban, 
or town and city dwellers. In England and Wales the pro- 
portion of owners of houses to inhabited houses is one in four ; 
in Scotland, one in three ; and in Ireland, one in fourteen. ;£ 
England and Wales, taken by themselves, are more densely 
populated than any country in Europe except Belgium. By 
the census of 1881 it contained four hundred and forty-six 
individuals to the square mile. More than one-fourth of the 
population of England and Wales is concentrated in London, § 
and when we remember the number of her great commercial 
and manufacturing cities, such as Liverpool, Birmingham, 
Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, it is not difficult to 
understand that to-day there is a greater power in England 
than her agricultural interest. 

It is with the agricultural interest we have chiefly to do. 
We have seen the burdens laid upon it. Those burdens have 
been steadily increasing for six centuries. Mulhall furnishes 

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 252. 

f Ibid., page 86. X Ibid., page 252. § Ibid., page 256. 



238 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

a table of the increase of the rent per acre in England.* In 
1230 the land was estimated at a value of about five dollars 
per acre, the rent two shillings per acre. In 1440 the rent 
had risen to three shillings ; in 1570 to four shillings ; in 1660 
to six shillings; in 1774 to fifteen shillings; and in 1875 to 
thirty shillings. In the Statesman's Year Book for 1885, page 
253, the estimated average rental in England and Wales is 
three pounds and two pence. In Scotland the rental is nine- 
teen shillings and nine pence per acre, and in Ireland thirteen 
shillings and four pence. It will thus be seen that in England 
and Wales in about six hundred and fifty years the rents had 
risen from two to sixty shillings an acre. Let us see if pro- 
duce had risen at the same rates. Mulhall gives a table of the 
price of wheat for five hundred and eighty years, the average 
from 1301 to 1350 being eighteen shillings per quarter of eight 
bushels, running up to 1851 ; between that year and 1881 wheat 
averaged fifty-one shillings.f These prices were according to 
weight of silver, which everybod}' knows was of much greater 
value before the discovery of the Americas. Accepting it as a 
standard, however, it will be observed that while wheat had 
risen three times in price, rent had risen thirty, or twenty times 
in price, taking it at the lowest figure in 1440 of three shillings. 
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wheat, or bread made 
from it, was the chief food of the people, together with beef and 
mutton. Six pounds of bread could be got for a penny, a sheep 
carcass for about a shilling, and a beef carcass ten shillings.^ 
Mulhall gives the present standard for beeves of five hundred 
and sixty pounds, at eight and a half cents, in bulk meat, which 
would be about forty-seven dollars, for what cost two and a 
half in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, an increase not 
so great as the increase in rent, but more nearly approximating 
to it than the grain produced from the land. 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 268. f Ibid., page 47-6. 

X Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 85. 



BURDEN" OF ARISTOCRATIC DEBTS. 239 

During the past five hundred years, Britain in common with 
the other nations of Western Europe, has been steadily grow- 
ing in population, wealth, and civilized appliances. I have 
shown that rent has much more than kept pace with this in- 
crease, and the laborer's food thus heavily taxed has risen 
with the rent, while the soil of Great Britain belongs to 
a small and progressively decreasing number of persons. This 
wealth made by the people, stimulated by their genius, and 
pushed forward by their energy and industry, has thus by a 
cunningly devised system been absorbed by a small number of 
persons. The world has seen princely establishments and pam- 
pered aristocracies, but never before such an aristocracy as that 
of modern Britain. Grant that it is an aristocracy of refine- 
ment, culture and wealth. The princely residences, stately 
parks, lawns and country-seats of the British aristocracy con- 
stitute a beautiful picture, but it has a reverse dark side. 

It is well known to political economists that great revenues 
are more apt to lead to extravagance and debt than revenues 
limited by more adverse circumstances. We have called 
attention to the great incomes derivable from the British land 
law and land system and it would appear to be an easy mat- 
ter to live not only in elegance, but to spare a liberal portion 
of the revenues, so derived, for the benefit of the laboring 
classes, who have, by cruel methods, been deprived of their 
share of the common heritage. Upon the contrary, the aris- 
tocracy of England seem to be quite as much hampered by 
their own extravagance as the poorer classes are by their 
poverty. By a table showing the mortgages on real estate 
in various countries, these liens amount in Britain to one 
billion six hundred million pounds, while France, although 
larger, with a greater agricultural population, carries only 
seven hundred and seventy million pounds debt.* Germany, 
another despotic aristocracy, stands even higher than Britain, 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 322. 



240 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

being one billion seven hundred million. The percentage of 
mortgages to the value of all real estate in these countries is 
forty-one per cent, in England, seventeen in France, and forty- 
nine per cent, in Germany ; Holland eighteen and Scandinavia 
thirteen per cent. It has been claimed by British economists 
that the English system of agriculture — an aristocratic land- 
lord, a capitalist speculating tenant farmer, and laborers — is the 
best for high tilth and productive farming ; but the export and 
import tables of France and Britain do not seem to favor this 
theory. Mr. Hoskyn says that the limited ownership of entail 
in Britain is unfavorable to improvements.* In other words, 
the law of entail has created separate interests in the families 
of the British landed interest. But for the laws of entail and 
primogeniture their extravagance would have broken up the 
British aristocratic land owners long ago. The aristocratic 
idea is to cement the whole property in the Kingdom in a small 
decreasing class; a conflict arises about the younger sons, not 
to mention daughters. A reasonably considerate British aris- 
tocrat, while willing to perpetuate the pride and power of his 
family, still wishes and strives to make some kind of a settle- 
ment for his wife and younger sons. If he can, he quarters 
one on the church and one on the army. As the landlords 
monopolize political power, he gets some official position under 
the government, or in India, or one of the colonies, for a third. 
Portions must be had for the daughters. To begin with, most 
of the landlords attempt a style of living nearly or quite up to 
their rent roll. Poor man ! with an income from an estate, 
called his, he may have a revenue of twenty or fifty thousand 
pounds a year, and be at his wits end to meet his obligations. 
How can he invest much capital to improve his farms merely 
for the benefit of his oldest son who is to inherit them ? If 
he is not destitute of economy, he saves to make his widow and 
younger children some provision at his death ; and if he should 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 193. 



ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE. 241 

not be able, he tries to induce the eldest son, before he has 
escaped the influence of home, and is still in the callow state, to 
tie up the estate with settlements, which forces the new holder 
to resort to economical practices his father would not adopt. 
How is the son to save any money to invest in permanent im- 
provements or cottages for laborers. If he expends at all, it 
is probably in beautifying his country-seat, for that flatters his 
pride. Hoskyn says : " No well-drawn settlement omits to 
make provision for the widow and younger children.* The 
law of primogeniture makes a will for a mau which he ought 
to deem it an insult to be accused of making for himself." 
Mr. Caird, in writing after a careful survey of the agricultural 
regions of England in 1851, says : "A far greater portion of 
it than is generally supposed (by the evidence exceeding two- 
thirds of the Kingdom) is in the possession of tenants for life 
so heavily burdened with settlements and encumbrances that 
they have not the means of improving the land they are obliged 
to hold." The " younger son " question has been the curse 
of the British aristocracy. Hon. James E. Thorold Rogers, 
M.P., writes: "The development of the younger son as a social 
pauper and a social leech is at the bottom of most of the pro- 
vincial extravagances and all the financial meanness of the 
English administrations to our own day." t The law of pri- 
mogeniture, he says further, "perpetuated the poverty of the 
younger son and the system of quartering him on the public 
purse." What else could an affectionate aristocratic father do? 
The system of British land tenure permitted him to derive 
revenues during life from the heritage of the English people, 
and as he must keep the aristocratic system intact as a constant 
hereditary leech on the public, why should he not use the 
public offices for his youuger sons, as Rogers intimates, "the 
post offices or the civil list"? If he robbed Peter for the 
benefit of his family, why not rob Paul ? 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 192. 
f Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 295; 
21 



242 BRITISH LANDHOLDIXG. 

In ascertaining the precise position occupied by the working 
people of England, it is not only necessary to ascertain the 
prices of labor and food, but the system of farming by land- 
owners, and finally, by capitalist leasing farmers. In ancient 
times the farm laborer, whatever he was or might be styled, 
had his cottage privileges, pasturage for his cows and other 
auimals on the commons, which, although claimed by the lords, 
had not been recognized as his property by the people. The 
sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked 
by the fencing in of these commons by the aristocracy, who 
thus became the stock raisers. The agricultural laborer who 
originally held his cottage and home patch without let or 
hindrance, first had to give so much service for the use of 
them, and finally was deprived of them altogether. In esti- 
mating his wages, therefore, an account must be taken for the 
loss of his garden patch, his cow, pig or poultry. He at last 
became merely a house tenant paying rent, has to walk several 
miles each day to his labor, and his wages must meet all his 
extra expenses. The landlords originally farmed part of their 
land. They did so to some extent on shares with the labor- 
ers. They furnished stock, and, if necessary, seed. If a mis- 
fortune brought a poor crop he was of necessity part loser. 
A new system was introduced as the land became more valu- 
able, and the aristocratic landlord, less inclined to bear any 
burdens or responsibilities connected with agriculture ; he 
rented his land to capitalist tenants, who paid him a rent. 
The rent, or this tribute exacted by the noble claimant from 
the soil, now constitutes his only connection with it. His 
only interest is to get the largest income derivable from the 
acres, claimed to be his, that is possible. With the laborer 
whose work makes the land productive he has nothing to do. 
The renter, or middleman, stands between him and the tiller 
of the soil. This intermediate person is not a laborer. He 
is a species of contractor or speculator. In raising wheat or 
other commodities his first expense is rent, that must be paid. 



THE INTERMEDIATE TENANT. 243 

Then comes the expense of implements, stock, seed, and 
interest on capital invested, and last, labor. Prices confront 
him on one hand and these items of expenditure oh the other. 
No matter what happens the rent he must pay ; his profits 
must be derived from what he can save out of his other 
expenditures. He is, therefore, a very cunningly devised 
" squeezing machine." Rogers says: "The rate of wages is 
lower when the principal employers are small tenant farmers, 
if the number of laborers is considerable enough to compete 
against each other for employment." * The landlord was 
never so able to screw down his laborers as the leasing tenant. 
When the change came, from cultivating landlords to culti- 
vating leasers, then came another thing, rack-rent. This first 
began in the sixteenth century and seems to have continued 
and increased. If any one is inclined to call in question the 
great power of laws of inheritance and laws to regulate 
tenure, the distribution or diminution of land ownership, 
let him carefully study the British land system. Here we 
have an aristocracy perpetuated by adroit combination of law. 
The leasing farmers, or at least many of them, are men of 
some means. They are business men. They and their families 
become attached to the homes they lease. This sentiment, 
among many other things, has been an effective spur to rack^ 
rent. Under fair conditions they would naturally become 
owners of the soil, but they cannot. As has been shown, the 
number of aristocratic landholders is steadily diminishing. 
The system of leases in England has not been as favorable 
for improvements by the tenant as it might have been. In 
Scotland the landlord often makes the improvements, but they 
charge their tenants a percentage on the outlay. f Owing to 
the rapid rise in rents the landlords were averse to granting 
long leases. Hoskyn says: a The want of a law to secure 

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 215. 

f Short Talks about Land Tenure by a Tenant Farmer, page 9. 



244 BRITISH LANDHOLDINO. 

tenants, to some extent, the value of the improvements made 
by them, and which they must leave, costs the agricultural 
interests of Eugland millions." * He thinks that leases for 
a lifetime would offer the highest inducement to such improve- 
ments, as every man construes the uncertainties of life in his 
own favor. So strong is the spirit of enterprise among the 
farming class in England, that even on short leases they are 
tempted to make improvements by which they will only par- 
tially benefit. The tenancies are generally made up of a 
number of plots, the time for which they run being different. 
A farmer will sometimes have five or six separate holdings 
from the same landlord that expire at different times. This 
probably arose from the fact that farmers were usually try- 
ing to add to the size of their farms, and in this way small 
holdings were absorbed by greater, f Mr. Rogers states, in 
this connection, that before Henry VIII. confiscated the lands 
of the church, estimated to be about one-third of the king- 
dom, the priests, fearing such a result, began to make long 
leases for forty years. J It has been said that the leasing 
tenant and the landlord have the same interest, which is to 
exact everything for nothing from the laborer. This is not 
exactly correct. It is true, the tenant has to keep on fair 
terms with the landlord so as to renew his leases, but their 
interest can hardly be said to be identical. "We pull in the 
same boat," said an English landlord to his tenant. " Yes," 
was the reply, " but in opposite directions." § The leasers, 
although a respectable class of some influence and standing, 
are not the old English yeomen. Most of the old yeoman 
manor houses were absorbed by the landed aristocracy, and 
the occupants driven into cities and towns. || Broderick 
thinks it would be a public advantage if the old extravagant 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 194. 

f Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 296. % Ibid., page 297. 

$ Systems of Land Tenure, page 198. 

|| Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 8. 



THE HOMELESS FARM LABORER. 245 

landholders could be forced to sell, or separated from their 
possessions. If the new owner was not encumbered with 
debts and mortgages he would not be so tempted to oppress 
and grind his tenants. In fact it is the extravagant pride 
of the aristocratic landholders that has for ages built up a 
system of expenditure and a style of living, the mainte- 
nance of which they consider indispensable to British civili- 
zation. 

The condition of the working agricultural laborers, long 
neglected, should be the first thing to consider. Hoskyn 
says : " We often hear of the English land system as com- 
prising the landlord, the tenant and the laborer ; so, in a 
certain sense, it does, but no one who considers the position 
of the laborer in English agriculture will assert that he has 
any fixed personal tie within the structure." * In point of 
fact, he is nothing more than a mere auxiliary, more or less in 
demand at different seasons, subject to the precarious vicissi- 
tudes of that demand. Until recent times, the laborer was 
the recognized inmate of the farmer's home. Still further 
back than that, the bond that tied him to the soil was the bond 
of servitude, but it nevertheless connected him with it; his 
employer was usually the owner of the land he tilled. " Time 
has changed all this, but the law that freed him from serf- 
dom, stripped him of all interest in the soil. The same 
English reign that awarded him his freedom marks the origin 
of the poor law system. Ominous association ! He is at 
present disconnected with all that is known of the progress 
of society." f The introduction of machinery, while it takes 
away some of his importance, cannot be said to relieve him 
from toil. The increase in population is only a menace to his 
occupation. The increase of wealth, which he does not share, 
widens the breach between him and the more favored classes. 
The rise in land and rent only renders it still more impossible 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 201. f Ibid., page 204. 



246 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

for him to acquire it. Farming by machinery and with 
capital, on scientific methods, drives the small tenant farmers 
into the class of laborers, or to the towns. " The law of parish 
settlement swept away cottages, so the laborer rents a shelter 
elsewhere and is exhausted traveling to and from his work." * 
" The laborer is no longer belonging to the glebe. He is free 
to come and go as he pleases, but without part or parcel in 
the land he helps to cultivate or any certain abode on it, or in 
connection with it, for himself or for his family." f Speaking 
of the present position of the British agricultural laborer, Mr. 
Fawcett says: " Theirs is a life of incessant toil for wages 
too scanty to give them a sufficient supply even of the first 
necessaries of life. No hope cheers their monotonous career. 
A life of constant labor brings them no other prospect than 
that when their strength is exhausted they must crave, as 
suppliant mendicants, for a pittance from parish relief." J 

The statisticians and political economists estimate that the 
manual labor of an arable farm covers one- third of the eutire 
cost of production. One would think that to pay the laborer 
one-third, which it is extremely doubtful if he receives, as the 
item of profit is not included, is not an extravagant estimate, 
but the farmers are continually complaining about the "cost- 
liness" of this item of their year's accounts. Mr. Rogers 
says : " It has been urged that cheap labor is a necessity for 
profitable agriculture, which means that the tenant farmers 
are too cowardly to resist rents which they cannot pay except 
by the degradation of those they employ." § Mr. Hoskyn 
writes : " The condition of the agricultural laborer is something 
to be preached against as a standing subject of charity, phil- 
anthropy, state grants and emigration." || He adds: "The 
farm laborer of England is like a slag thrown out of the fur- 

* Systems of Land Tenure, pags 206. f Ibid., page 204. 

% Economic Position of the British Laborer, page 6. 
| Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 513. 
|| Systems of Land Tenure, page 207. 



247 

nace." The most astute of political economists can see no 
way through his labor to better his condition. Mr. Bailey 
Denton, in a speech, remarks, " The only way to justify the 
increase of the laborer's wages will be by rendering the value 
of the labor greater than it now is." * To show that abund- 
ance has been produced, Mr. Fawcett says : " The most con- 
clusive evidence exists that the production of wealth in this 
country is so vast and so rapidly augmenting that it is idle to 
say that poverty exists because enough wealth is not pro- 
duced." f To quote Mr. Hoskyn : " It would be a libel on 
any class of this generation to charge upon it the isolated phe- 
nomenon which the agricultural laborer presents in the midst 
of growing wealth ; standing against it, this growing poverty 
that is separating the growing life of England." The follow- 
ing is from a speech of the president of the Poor Law Board : 
" Constantly increasing rates, constantly increasing pauperism, 
.millions of money spent, yet without satisfaction, and, infin- 
itely worse, millions of human beings whose very name im- 
plies a degradation, even in their own eyes, as recipients of 
parochial relief." The "retired tenant farmer," in his "Short 
Talks about Land Tenure," says : " 1. One country is said to 
be wealthier than another when the aggregate of money or 
other articles that will produce money, possessed by its inhab- 
itants, is greater in proportion to their number than that 
possessed by the inhabitants of another country. 2. One 
country is more prosperous than another when it supports, in 
proportion to its size, a larger number of persons in greater 
comfort than the other country, or, to put it more distinctly, 
that country is the most prosperous which supports the greatest 
number in the greatest comfort" J C. Wren Hoskyn holds : 
" The soil was not meant for idle enjoyment even by its 
unoccupying owners." 

* The Agricultural Laborer. 

t Economic Position of the British Laborer, page 6. 

% Short Talks about Land Tenure, page 48. 



248 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

Under these circumstances we may pause to inquire just 
the extent of the freedom and independence gained for the 
British laborer by the struggles of the past six centuries. 
Charles I., with his bigoted, despotic spirit, tried to restore 
serfdom and the worst features of the feudal system, but did 
not succeed. The nominal and final abolition of feudalism 
occurred in the first year of the reign of the second Charles. 
The mistake was, that during the troubled times of the com- 
monwealth and the restoration, the lands wrongfully seized 
from the people were not restored to them. "Those who 
own the land rule the country," and Britain has been ruled 
by the landlords ever since, and they have ruled it in their 
own interests. A careful examination of the condition of the 
English laborer as serf, villein and hired laborer, does not 
really show such a progress as English civilization ought to 
be able to boast of. Mr. Hoskyn truly says, "Dependence 
has its advantages and independence its charms, but the la- 
borer's lot is so cast as to derive the minimum benefit from 
either. *" Certainly, the hardest part of his fate has been to 
leave him a homeless waif. His land, originally, stolen by 
the noble, the commons fenced up so he could keep no 
cows or get fuel from the forest, his cottage and garden 
taken, partly because so long as it stood it was like a ghost of 
his right to the land, and partly because it disfigured the land- 
scape. In this dilemma about laborers' cottages the govern- 
ment is invoked to lend the public money, drained by taxa- 
tion, to land improvement companies, empowered by Act of 
parliament to build laborers cottages on gentlemen's estates. f 
Dr. Hunter, the medical officer of the privy council, in his 
Seventh Report, inquires "whether all land that requires 
labor ought not to be held liable to the obligation of contain- 
ing a certain portion of laborers' dwellings." It is strange 
that he was not denounced as a " communist," and his report 

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 206. f Ibid., page 207. 



COTTAGES FOR WOEKINGMEN. 249 

as an " incendiary document." Hoskyn asks, " Whose duty is 
it to provide, under our system of universal tenancy, the laborer 
with a home that may connect him with his work ? The 
leasing farmer cannot build laborers' cottages." In the first 
place the land is not his, and if he attempted to build cottages, 
with gardens attached, it is probable that the landlord would 
make him pay extra rent for them. Besides, if, in order to 
be able to pay the heavy rent he is responsible for, he has to 
reduce the laborer's wages almost to starvation rates, how can 
he build cottages for the laborers. On the other hand, the 
laborer is not the landlord's workman. It is nothing to the 
landlord whence the laborer comes or whither he goes. If 
any man could invent an automaton to do the laborer's work, 
and the landlord felt interested at all in labor, he would prob- 
ably recommend the laborer to try emigration as a relief for 
all his ills. The tenant's business is to make the most he can 
during his short lease, and if he can aiford it, try to get a 
renewal. It is the landlord's business to get all the rent he 
can, so as to meet his settlements and mortgages, and enable 
his family to live in the position they have been accustomed to. 
Political society, as it were, is committed to his privileges ; 
has, as the Duke of Argyle says, " recognized such ownership 
for ages and encouraged it." * After all, the laborer is not 
the employer's tenant. The man who employs cannot house 
him, and the man who could does not employ him. The 
case has thus been cleverly put by a gentleman who under- 
stood it : " The question of a cottage for the farm laborer be- 
comes, under our system, one of those detached problems that 
fall into the waste basket of pure philanthropy." f 

In the early part of the fifteenth century the average cost 
of a laborer's board was nine pence a week. In the famine 
year 1348-9 it rose to an average of one shilling six pence. 

* Argyle's Prophet of San Francisco, in Nineteenth Century, for April, 
1884. 

f Systems of Land Tenure, page 207. 



250 BRITISH LAND HOLDING. 

There was not much variation in the price of board until the 
issue of base money. In 1542 board and lodging are put at one 
shilling a week, but in ten years it had risen to an average of 
three shillings a week. In 1562, 1563 and 1570, Queen 
Elizabeth makes quarterly contracts for victualling her work- 
men in the dockyards. In the first year the contract is an 
average of four shillings half pence ; in the second year, four 
shillings six pence ; in the third year, at three shillings eleven 
pence.* The variation being on account of dear and cheap 
years. The queen also rented lodgings for the workmen, at 
two pence a week, the contract being that the men should 
have feather beds, and that two should lie in a bed, and that 
the queen should find sheets and pay for washing them, at the 
rate of one pence a pair. In 1562 the average price of labor 
was four shillings nine and a half pence a week. In 1565, 
four shillings half pence. In 1570, four shillings seven 
pence. In 1573, four shillings eleven and a half pence. In 
1577, four shillings ten and a half pence, and in 1578, four 
shillings eight pence.f The queen having found that which 
was making her laborers poor was making her poor also, as 
rents, dues and subsidies were fixed, and the purchasing power 
of money had fallen to about one-third of its ancient capacity, 
she had a proclamation drafted declaring that the shilling 
should circulate at eight pence. Her advisers, however, in- 
duced her to suppress the document, fearing that it would 
be obnoxious to the charge that the crown was trying arbi- 
trarily to enhance its demands against its debtors. In point 
of fact, it would have enhanced the dues of every creditor and 
saddled an additional burden on every debtor. In addition 
to the debasement of the coin, a more potent cause of the fail- 
ure in the purchasing power of money was the introduction 
of vast amounts of gold and silver from the Americas, discov- 
ered by the Europeans, in 1492, the richest of the American 

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 354. f Ibid. • 



LEGISLATION FOR LABOR. 251 

nations having been robbed during the intervening period. A 
similar great influx of the precious metals occurred about the 
middle of this century, on the discovery of gold in Australia 
and California, and the development of silver mines by im- 
proved machinery. The great capitalists of the world finding 
this reduced the value of their accumulations, have labored to 
strike down one of the standards, silver being selected, thus 
to increase the value of what they received from those who 
owed them. Much of the increase of prices and wages in the 
past four hundred and fifty years is governed by the decreas- 
ing purchasing power of money. 

In the days of Queen Elizabeth several laws were enacted 
affecting laborers, a few of them professedly in their interest. 
One of these was the law authorizing the judges of the quar- 
ter sessions to fix the price of labor in each county. This act 
continued in force until 1812. Another statute of Elizabeth, 
5 cap. 4, enacts " that no person shall work at any trade, 
mystery or occupation who has not served a seven years' 
apprenticeship." A list prepared by the judges was issued in 
a proclamation by Elizabeth, in 1564, as a guide to other 
authorities. These lists were begun by Burleigh and contin- 
ued by Cecil. The ordinary citizen is to have nine pence a 
day in summer, and eight pence in winter. The laborers are 
to have seven pence in summer, except harvest, at which time 
they have eight pence and ten pence ; in winter the laborers 
to get six pence. With the increased price of wheat and other 
articles it was required of the laborers, under this list, to give 
forty weeks' work for that which he obtained in 1495, for 
fifteen weeks' labor.* In 1593 another table of laborers' 
Avages was fixed, under which the laborer was required to 
work a whole year to buy what he could have purchased in 
1495 by fifteen weeks' labor. In 1610 the Rutland magis- 
trates made their assessment of the price of labor. Under 

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 390. 



252 BRITISH LANDHOLDIXG. 

this scale, compared with the prices of the staple articles he 
had to buy, such as bread, an artisan had to work forty-three 
weeks to buy what he could have purchased for ten weeks' 
work in 1495.* It will thus be seen that the quarter sessions 
magistrates did not let their power lie idle, and it could 
scarcely be said to be used in the interest of the laborers. 
Indeed, there was a continual complaint on the part of em- 
ployers that laborers refused to work, or were unwilling to 
work, for such wages as they could afford to pay. Another 
of the enactments of "the good Queen Bess/ 7 was to arrest all 
persons without an occupation, and punish or sell them. It 
has been stated that it was this statute of Elizabeth that sug- 
gested to the Russian despot the idea of reducing his agricultu- 
ral laborers to serfdom. In 1495 an artisan computing the price 
of wheat and labor earned a bushel of wheat in a day, and an 
ordinary laborer, three-quarters of a bushel. f Taking this 
standard and comparing it at different dates, a pretty fair 
estimate can be made. One very important matter, however, 
has to be taken into consideration. In 1495, and long after, 
the laborers of England had certain advantages, of which they 
have since been deprived, that added to their productive 
means of support. The ancient laborer of England, down to 
the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had his 
cottage and garden, and the right to graze his cow or cows, 
sheep and pigs on the common pasture. By the increase in 
population and the subsequent rise in the price of land and 
rent, the nobles fenced up the common lands, thus distinctly 
asserting a private claim to them. This was the subject of 
great complaint at the time, and ought to have been resisted. 
The landowners, however, made the laws, and the only way 
of meeting such usurpation would have been by insurrection 
or armed resistance. 

The insurrection of Watt Tyler and Jack Cade were peasant 

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 392. f Ibid., page 389. 



I 

WATT TYLER. 253 

and artisan insurrections, and although formidable, were sup- 
pressed by means of murder, bad faith and treachery, and 
crushed with the most 'ruthless cruelty. These earlier insur- 
rections had reference not only to the seizure of the land, but 
serfdom. The demand made by Watt Tyler and his leading 
companions, of the king, was one that ennobled those who de- 
manded it. The insurrection was widespread, and an army 
under Tyler had marched to London, and there was no ade- 
quate force to resist it. The young king and the royal family 
took refuge in the tower, which Tyler notified them he would 
take unless an interview was granted. Richard demanded 
what they wanted. They answered : " You will make us free 
forever, our heirs and our lands, and that we be called no 
more bond or villeins, or so reputed." * The immediate and 
prompt assent might have aroused the suspicion of these simple, 
well-meaning men. Richard urged them to return to their 
homes and leave three men from each town to receive the 
charters which he promised to give. Many of the insurgents, 
misled by his promises, obeyed, trusting to the word of a king. 
It is supposed that Tyler, who was undoubtedly a man of 
moderation as well as capacity, reduced the great force he had 
because it was subsisted with difficulty. He remained, however, 
with thirty thousand men to see the pledge carried out. The 
king put thirty clerks at work to make the charters, aud one 
of them dated June 15th, 1381, is preserved in Walsiugham, 
addressed to the authorities of Hertfordshire. King Richard 
spoke the insurgents fair, but, it is said, he assured his coun- 
selors he would yet take vengeance on them. Whether the 
king ever meant good faith is uncertain ; but as he did not 
keep it, he deserves no credit. He and the nobles were secretly 
plotting to get sufficient force together to crush the rebels. 
The young king was even attempting to escape from London. 
As the whole country was full of the insurrectionary spirit, it 



* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 258. 
22 



254 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

is difficult to see where he could have gone. As the kiug 
and his party came near Tyler, the latter told his men to fall 
back and proceeded alone to the interview, no doubt feeling 
that in the honor of those who sought this interview he was 
safe. He was instantly set upon and murdered by the Lord 
Mayor of London. That the insurgents did not utterly destroy 
the whole royal party is surprising. The kiug affected indig- 
nation and renewed his promises, and on these promises the 
armed people were induced to go home. As soon as the kiug 
aud the nobles became sufficiently fortified, the work of venge- 
ance began. Not less than fifteen hundred of the leaders 
of the insurrection were executed. The spirit of resistance 
among the people was not altogether subdued. To make a 
pretence of escaping the question of dishonor, it was argued 
that it was beyond the province of the kiug to free the serfs 
and free the laud. It was the same story, "vested rights." 
The Parliament of landed aristocrats alone could do that. The 
kiug referred the question to them, and they having recovered 
breath from their fright, resolved "That all grants of liberties 
and manumissions to the said villeins and bond tenauts ob- 
tained by force are in disherison of them, the lords and 
Commons, and to the destruction of the realm, aud therefore 
null and void ;" and they added "that this consent they never 
would give to* save themselves from perishing all together in 
one clay." * If all such tyrants had "perished all together in 
one day," it would have been no great calamity to the realm. 
In spite of their vainglorious resolve, serfdom was abolished, 
but only through fear. The " free land " the people claimed 
was not given to them. The agricultural Englishman, by the 
very terms of his manumission, was divorced from the mother 
soil that bore him ; when degrading servitude ended, land- 
lordism began. The result through these centuries has proved 
that they who monopolize the land have ample means for rob- 

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 263. 



RISE OF COMMERCE. 255 

biug human labor without nominal slavery, and in the face of 
a high civilization these exactions from the people have been 
perpetuated. The English historians usually distort or speak 
lightly of the insurrections of Watt Tyler and Jack Cade. 
They are held up to ridicule now as "communists." What 
they asked speaks for itself, and must commend its merits to 
every fair-minded, honorable man. Watt Tyler was one of 
the most eminent of Englishmen ; of undoubted ability and 
great moderation, restraining his followers from excesses, and 
only asking for the just rights of the people. It is doubtful 
if it would acid to his fame to place his monument in West- 
minster, but it is not likely to be done so long as a greedy, 
landed aristocracy rules England. It was an insurrection of 
artisans and laborers, and was unsuccessful because it was mer- 
ciful and moderate, and because the king and selfish aristocrats 
did not hesitate at falsehood, treachery and murder. 

A great change came gradually over England. Driven by 
tyranny too hard to bear, the most independent fled to the 
towns. Commerce and manufactures were built up. A power 
stronger than agriculture arose. The very existence of Bri- 
tain to-day would be impossible without its commerce and 
manufactures. As a nation, it imports a great portion of the 
bread and meat it eats, and pays for them by manufactures, 
and by performing much of the carrying trade of the world. 
The manufactures and commerce of England have been built 
up, not by the aristocracy, but by workmen from the people. 
Watt, Arkwright, Wedge wood and many others like them, 
created the modern power in England. Half the people of 
England find their occupation in the industries such men 
bogan. The poor agricultural laborer of Britain has been so 
impoverished and crippled that he has ceased to be a power 
in the realm he should have helped to rule. The manufac- 
turing and commercial classes have been too strong to be 
altogether ignored, and a little power has, from time to time, 
been reluctantly conceded to them, but all efforts in the direc- 



256 BETTISH LA.NDHOLDIXG. 

tion of doing justice to the people have been defeated by a set 
of parasitic landholders. It was not the wars of the Cru- 
sades, or the French and other wars carried on by the landed 
aristocratic order for the benefit of the younger sons that built 
up the power of England. The British empire of to-day is 
the creation of the working-people of England. The aristoc- 
racy, however, has managed to get much benefit from the devel- 
opment of the country. The great commercial activity, and 
the demand it created, enabled them to double and treble 
their rents. They thus incidentally were able to place the 
sturdy burgher of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester under 
tribute as they previously had the agricultural laborer. No 
one can tell the depths to which the agricultural laborer of 
Britain would have sunk had it not been for the great man- 
ufacturing and commercial activity which kept up the 
price of wages. An examination of the wages of workers 
in the factories and shops of Britain shows that they are 
better paid than in most countries on the continent, although 
the English artisans are not so well paid as the same class in 
the United States. Eobert Giifen, Esq., has endeavored to 
trace "the progress of the working classes in the last half 
century " in Britain, and demonstrates that their condition 
has improved in that time. It would have been wonderful 
if it had not. Fifty per cent., at least, of the inventions that 
have added wealth and power to modern civilization have 
been created in that period. Our railroad system is little 
more than fifty years old, and steam navigation, practically, 
not older than the century. The wealth created in that time 
is perfectly enormous, and it would have been strange if the 
people, to whom the country owed its production, had not 
reaped some small advantage. What he does not prove, or, 
indeed, attempt to prove, is, that an equal share, in proportion 
to their numbers, of this increased wealth, has gone into the 
pockets of the laboring classes. As everybody knows, including 
Mr. Giifen, nothing of that kind has happened. Mr. Mul- 



GIFFEN. 257 

hall, under the head of accumulations in Great Britain, gives 
the increase of wealth during the decade from 1870 to 1880, 
as four hundred thousand pounds, or two million dollars per 
day. This is just as he says, three pence per day to each 
inhabitant, man, woman and child in the British empire, or 
forty-five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence each, for the 
ten years. This amount we will suppose, for the sake of 
argument to Mr. GhTen and the rest of the political econo- 
mists, was created by the labor and capital of England. At 
the rate of five persons to a family, that would be two hun- 
dred and twenty-eight pounds two shillings and six pence to 
each head of a family. JSTow, does Mr. Giffen, or Mr. Mal- 
lock, or anybody else pretend for a moment that the working 
people found themselves, at the end of the ten years, with that 
much accumulated capital in their pockets, or anything like 
it ? The most his tables show is that perhaps the laborers 
are a little better fed and a little better clad than they were 
at a particular period fifty years ago. "Will either of these 
gentlemen tell us in whose pockets this immense accumulation 
of wealth has lodged ? It may be said that the laborer is 
improvident and intemperate. Are the laborers more intem- 
perate and extravagant than the aristocratic landholders of 
Britain? It is just to concede that there are many persons in 
both these classes given to improvidence and excess. He 
gives a table * comparing the wages at the present time with 
those of fifty years ago in Great Britain. Carpenters fifty 
years ago had but twenty-four shillings a week, now, thirty- 
four shillings ; masons, twenty-four shillings then, and now, 
twenty-nine shillings ten pence; pattern weavers, sixteen 
shillings then, twenty-five shillings now ; Bradford weavers, 
eight shillings three pence then, twenty shillings six pence 
now ; spinners, twenty-five shillings six pence then, thirty 
shillings now. That will give a fair idea of his table. Wheat, 

* Progress of the Working Classes in the Last Half Century, page 5. 



258 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

he claims, if not lower, at least, is not higher, and sugar and 
cotton cloth lower. Animal food has risen more in propor- 
tion than wages. House rent, according to his table,* was 
twenty shillings fifty years ago, forty shillings at the present 
time. His conclusion is that, comparing prices with wages, 
there is a " real gain." If he had carefully considered all the 
items of expenditure he would have found that the condition 
of the laborer was but little improved, — another fact in 
reference to his table which refers to the work of mechanics 
and artisans he has not noted ; and it affects its accuracy : 
fifty years ago there was a great depression of the mercan- 
tile interests of Britain, especially among weavers. The 
introduction of many new kinds of machinery, to the condi- 
tions of which the workmen had not time to adjust themselves, 
had unsettled great manufacturing industries. Thousands and 
tens of thousands were idle. Public relief and " soup kitch- 
ens " were organized in a wholesale way, and this depression 
continued for a considerable number of years before and after 
the period Mr. Giffen fixes for the first date in his tables. It 
is probably true that the British artisan and laborer is slightly 
better off than he was fifty years ago. Four centuries ago 
the average English workman was certainly wealthier than 
he is to-day. f Another thing Mr. Giffen seems to forget, 
and that is, how far the laboring classes are better off as com- 
pared with the wealth of other classes. Another cause and 
one produced by the depression, a great emigration set in, or 
rather set out from Great Britain about that time. From 1820 
to 1882, eight million five hundred and seventy thousand 
emigrated from Britain ; J of these, five million three hundred 
and seventy-seven thousand came to the United States, and three 
million one hundred and sixteen thousand went to the British 
colonies. These emigrants numbered more than one-fifth of the 

* Progress of the Working Classes in the Last Half Century, page 14. 

f Workingmen Co-operators, page 30. 

X Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 168. 



INCOME TAX STATISTICS. 259 

present population of Great Britain, and it is safe to say that 
they were chiefly from the laboring classes. Statistics, by the 
by, are a very mysterious contrivance. Thus, we find it 
stated, that the yearly consumption of grain per inhabitant in 
Britain, is three hundred and thirty pounds ; of meat, one 
hundred and five pounds.* Now, while this amount of ani- 
mal food is less than one-third of a pound a day, it would be 
a gross mistake to suppose that the poor artisans and laborers 
eat even that small amount. The figure is what is termed an 
aggregate, and is/ the amount he would have eaten if he had 
eaten his proportionate share of w T hat was consumed. All 
Mr. Giffen has /been able to demonstrate is that artisans and 
operatives get Wages to-day that can purchase, even according 
to his showing, just a very little more than they could fifty 
years ago. With the great majority of the laboring poor, 
their circumstances, everything considered, are not much better, 
and that, too, in face of the fact that the wealth and productive 
power of the nation, as an aggregate, has doubled or trebled. 
In the same way, Mr. Mallock, in attempting to bring statis- 
tics to bear on Mr. Henry George and Mr. Hyndman pro- 
ceeds to show that in 1843 the gross income of the nation was 
five hundred and fifteen million pounds; in 1851 it was six 
hundred and sixteen million pounds; in 1864, eight hundred 
and fourteen million pounds, and, since 1880, it has reached or 
exceeded one billion two hundred million pounds. f He then 
proceeds to ascertain the amount in each of these years that was 
assessed for income tax, the tax being on incomes of one hun- 
dred and fifty pounds or more. He ascertains that in 1843 
only two hundred and eighty million pounds of the five hun- 
dred and fifteen millions was assessed, and seems to take it 
for granted that all over the first figures was the income of 
people having less than one hundred and fifty pounds a year, 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 205. 
f Mallock's Property and Progress, page 202. 



260 BEITISH LANDHOLDING. 

Absurd as such data must appear, real or approximate, it 
would not, if true, be a very flattering statement, as the in- 
come tax-payers are numbered by hundreds of thousands, 
and those who do not pay income tax, by tens of millions. 
In 1851 Mr. Mallock thinks that although the gross income of 
the nation had increased one hundred aud one millions of 
pounds, " strangely enough," the income tax was no larger. 
We are familiar with such data in this country. He assumes, 
however, that the extra income had gone to those in moderate 
or poor circumstances. When he gets to 1880, with a gross 
national income of one billion two hundred million, the in- 
come tax has only been obtained from five hundred and 
seventy-seven million, and thus he makes it appear that more 
than half of the gross income of the nation has goue to those 
who had less than one hundred and fifty pounds a year. 
Happy people ! This style of statistics is quite facetious. In 
this country great fortunes of twenty, fifty or even one hun- 
dred millions, when viewed through the spectacles of an 
property tax collector, dwindle from millions to paltry thou- 
sands. It may be urged that the British wealthy classes are 
a high-toned, honest, truthful class, and never resort to sub- 
terfuges to reduce their taxable income. One instance was 
brought to the writer's notice very early in life, and juvenile 
though he was, he did not forget it. When the window tax 
prevailed in Britain, a tax of about five dollars a window, for 
each window over a small number exempted, the then Duke 
of Argyle kept a few mechanics " adding to " and " finishing " 
Inverary Castle ; as the tax could only be collected when the 
building was " finished," it was cheaper to continue to build 
than to pay taxes. I have no doubt that many noble lords 
and distinguished gentlemen have been in many ways equally 
ingenious in evading the tax collector, and that income tax 
returns are rather an unsafe basis for statistical tables show- 
ing the relative wealth of parties. Having obtained his 
statistical basis, however, Mr. Mallock proceeds to erect his 



MR. mallock's statistics. 261 

superstructure thereon. He places the population of Great 
Britain in 1843 at twenty-seven millions in round numbers; 
in 1864, at thirty millions, and, at the present time, thirty-six 
millions. Taking the basis of wealth to which we have re- 
ferred, he proceeds, " We know that of this increase of num- 
bers, the larger part, proportionally, is to be attributed to the 
richer classes. They have increased by more than two hun- 
dred per cent., or from one million five hundred thousand, to 
four million seven hundred thousand ; while the poorer 
classes, on the contrary, have increased but twenty per cent., 
or from twenty-six million in 1843, to thirty million now. 
Hence, the same number of them that in 1843 had two hun- 
dred and thirty-five million pounds, had, in 1851, three 
hundred and thirty-six million pounds, and a number that 
is barely greater by one-fifth, has, annually, by this time, 
six hundred and twenty million pounds." * By this arith- 
metic of Mr. Mallock's he has a population of four million 
seven hundred thousand people enjoyiug an income of one 
hundred and fifty pounds. I suppose, allowing nearly five 
persons to a family, this would give us about one million 
families. Let us see. Mr. MulhalPs work for 1884 gives 
the latest classification for 1887, as follows : f It is classified 
thus : ninety incomes of over fifty thousand pounds (some of 
these over one million pounds) ; one thousand and sixty- 
seven incomes of from ten to fifty thousand pounds ; twenty- 
one thousand six hundred and ninety-one incomes of from 
one to ten thousand pounds. Mr. Mulhall makes the 
annual earnings of the British nation one billion two 
hundred and forty-seven million pounds, and the amount 
per inhabitant, thirty-six pounds, or about one hundred 
and seventy-three dollars. J He also gives the average income 
(if equally divided) at thirty-five pounds.§ Going back to 

* Mallock's Property and Progress, page 202. 

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 247. J Ibid. 246. 

I Mulhall's (table) Dictionary of Statistics, page 473. 



262 BEITISH LANDHOLDING. 

Mr. Mai lock, he says : " Now if we state this increase in terms 
of the average income per family, we find that each family 
among the poorer classes in England had in 1843 about forty 
pounds a year; in 1851 had fifty-eight pounds, and that at 
the present it has between ninety-five and one hundred 
pounds." * He adds : " Of course, this is a general average 
only and does not correspond exactly to the real facts in the 
case." We should think not. If we subtract the enormous 
incomes, running into millions, and the larger number of what 
might still be called princely incomes, and so on down to the 
tens of thousands and thousands, all these the incomes of the 
non-productive classes, largely obtained without consideration 
from the bulk of the national income, the remainder would be 
the amount received by the middle and lower classes. A large 
amount of this would be paid to the middle classes, leaving 
the lowest amount individually to the actual laborers. In the 
United States consular reports for 1885, just issued, the fol- 
lowing prices of agricultural labor are given : In Gloucester- 
shire, England, the average wage, without food or lodging, is 
in summer, per week, $3.65; in winter, $2.91. Females 
for ordinary field work, per week, without food or lodging, 
receive $1.14; females at harvest, $2.13. In Wiltshire and 
Dorsetshire, males in summer are paid $2.91, males in winter, 
$2.67, women field workers, $1.46. f These latter are weeks 
wages without food or lodging. In the Hull district, farm 
laborers by the year, with board and lodging, get twenty- 
nine to seventy-two dollars. In county of York, farm labor- 
ers, first class, get by the week, four dollars and six cents, with 
cottage but no board. Second class farm laborers obtain three 
dollars and seventy cents, without board or lodging. Plough- 
men get sixty-eight to seventy-eight dollars per year, with 
board and lodging ; plough boy, forty-eight to sixty-eight dol- 

f Mallock's Property and Progress, page 204. 
* Consular Reports, 1885, page 81. 



FOOD AND WAGES. 263 

lars. Blacksmiths are paid per day, ninety-six cents; joiners, 
ninety-six cents, — that is without board or lodging, but both 
receive two glasses of beer a day.* Agricultural laborers in 
Newcastle hire by the half year for the season's work. For 
the men by this half year season, forty-eight to seventy-eight 
dollars are paid; boys, seventeen to twenty-four dollars; 
females, thirty-one dollars and sixty-four cents to girls, and 
forty-three dollars and eighty cents for women. f Although 
not stated this is presumably with board. In Dundee, Scot- 
land, United States Consul Wells writes, that the food of the 
working classes is "simple and homely, breakfast, — porridge 
and milk, or tea or coffee with bread and butter and perhaps 
eggs, small bit of bacon or herring. Diuner, — is frequently 
Scotch broth cooked with cabbage or other vegetables and beef 
in small quantities. Supper, — tea with bread and butter. 
Mill and factory girls who do not reside at home are compelled 
to live more plainly, their wages being insufficient to procure 
them the fare here specified." { The consul says : " The work- 
ing classes in Dundee are poorly provided for in the way of 
house accommodations. There are in the city, eight thousand 
six hundred and twenty houses, of only one room each, occu- 
pied by twenty-three thousand six hundred and seventy per- 
sons." He speaks of the condition of these single-room 
" hovels " as places where " five or six human beings are 
sheltered with nothing to lie on but the floor and covering 
themselves, when they have an opportunity, with jute burlaps, 
which they take in to make into hand-sewed bags." The con- 
dition of the British laborer and workman two or three 
hundred years ago was certainly not so utterly wretched. 
Agricultural laborers, such as the foreman of a farm, get one 
hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty cents a year with house, 
garden, one-half gallon of milk, two and one-half pounds oat- 
meal and six or seven pounds of potatoes per day. Second 

* Consular Reports, 1885, page 82. f Ibid. % Ibid. 



264 BEITISH LANDHOLDING. 

and third hands, near Dundee, get one hundred and six dol- 
lars and ninety-two cents to one hundred and thirty-six dol- 
lars, with milk and meal and sleeping accommodations, with 
fire in " boothy." Ordinary hands get an average of sixty- 
seven cents a day. " Outworkers," females, per, day on an 
average, thirty-three cents ; during harvest, eighty-seven 
cents; during potato lifting, forty-nine cents.* In Ireland we 
find the average wages per year of the agricultural laborers, 
ploughmen, with board and lodging, ninety-seven dollars and 
thirty-three cents; without boarding and lodging, one hundred 
and forty-six dollars. Laborer, with board and lodging, 
sixty-eight dollars and thirteen cents, without board and lodg- 
ing, one hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty cents. When, 
therefore, Mr. Mallock, in order to refute the statements of 
Mr. George and Mr. Hyndman, says : " We find that each 
family among the poorer classes of England had, in 1843, 
about forty pounds a year (two hundred dollars); in 1851, 
fifty-eight pounds (about two hundred and eighty r seven dol- 
lars), and at the present time has between ninety-five and one 
hundred pounds (nearly four hundred and seventy-five to five 
hundred dollars), we can understand how fair a statement it is 
as showing the real conditions of the working classes. But 
had his figures been even fair and true what would they 
reveal ? The gross income of the nation was, he says, in 
1843, in round numbers, five hundred and fifteen million 
pounds, and had risen in 1880 to one billion two hundred 
million pounds. Mr. Mulhall puts the income for 1882 at one 
billion two hundred and forty -seven million pounds ; for 1840, 
five hundred and forty million pounds; for 1822, two hundred 
and eighty million pounds; for 1860, seven hundred and 
sixty million pounds.f Thus the gross income of the nation 
has considerably more than doubled since 1840, and more than 

* Consular Reports, 1885. 

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 245. 



IRELAND. 205 

quadrupled since 1822, and it takes Mr. Giffen very close 
figuring to show an addition to the laborer's income, when, 
if there had been any fair kind of distribution, it ought, at 
least, to have been doubled. No more conclusive evidence 
could be found than even their own statements, to prove that 
in the great increase of wealth nearly the whole of it had gone 
into the hands of the wealthy and non-producing classes. 

Ireland, so far as land and the land- question are concerned, 
has to be treated as being not a part of Britain, indeed a con- 
quered province that still feels the avaricious hand of the 
conqueror. We have already stated in another chapter how, 
in Queen Elizabeth's reign, they made Irish landlords into 
English landlords. When Oliver Cromwell conquered or 
overran Ireland, he gave his colonels and captains a very large 
part of the island. Arthur Young says, when in Ireland, he 
was informed that descendants of Cromwell's colonels possessed 
estates drawing rent rolls of ten thousand pounds a year, and 
descendants of his captains who drew from rent incomes of 
two and three thousand pounds a year.* The last of these 
forfeitures of the land of Ireland occurred after the battle 
of the Boyne, when William Prince of Orange banished King 
James. Young says that at that time, " nineteen-twentieths 
of Ireland changed hands from Catholic to Protestant." f For 
this reason, says Mr. Young, who wrote in 1778, "the question 
of religion has been intimately interwoven with the land 
question in Ireland." Even though dispossessed, the, old 
owners went through the form of transmitting their deeds to 
their heirs. It can easily be understood that in this way 
bitter feelings were likely to be long cherished and although 
the work of Catholic emancipation in Ireland has taken away 
many political grievances, other grievances still remain. King 
William was conqueror at Boyne Water, and did not hesitate 
to dispossess the old Irish landlords and put in a set of his 

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., page 44. f Ibid. 

23 



266 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

own, but he still was too much in favor of religious toleration 
to force cruel and proscriptive laws on the people. Six or 
seven years after his death these were enacted and may thus be 
summed up : First, the whole body of the Koman Catholics 
was disarmed. Second, they were incapacitated from pur- 
chasing real estate. Third, the entails of their estates were 
broken and the " gavel " of their children. Fourth, if one 
child abjured that religion he might inherit the estate. Fifth, 
if a son abjure that religion the father hath no power over 
that estate. Sixth, no Catholic can take a lease for more than 
thirty-one years. Seventh, if the rent of any Catholic is less 
than two-thirds of its full value, any informer can take the 
benefit of the lease. Eighth, priests who celebrate mass are 
to be transported, and if they return, hanged. Ninth, a 
Catholic having in his possession a horse worth more than five 
pounds is to forfeit the same to the discoverer. Tenth, by a 
construction of Lord Hardwick they were incapacitated from 
loaning money on mortgages.* Instead of being surprised at 
the number of disturbances and rebellions in Ireland, it is 
only astonishing that there were not more of them. Ireland 
is a striking lesson of the folly of trying to suppress a religion 
by persecution. While England and Scotland under a differ- 
ent system have become substantially Protestant, Ireland is 
not only largely but intensely Catholic. The millions of 
Irishmen who have during this century emigrated to the 
United States constitute an important element of the Catholic 
Church in the United States. 

In this way it will be observed that a landed aristocracy, 
largely alien to the soil, and very largely hostile to the feel- 
ings and wishes of the Irish people, was inflicted on the agri- 
cultural interests of Ireland. Partly owing to the persecution 
and ostracism of a majority of the Irish people, it was found 
difficult to get the lands properly cultivated. Arthur Young 

* Arthur Young's Tour in England, vol. ii., page 45. 



LANDLORDS IN TRIPLICATE. 267 

informs us that in consequence of the small value of land in 
Ireland previous to the last century, and through a large 
portion of it " landlords became so careless of the interests of 
posterity as readily to grant leases to their tenants forever." * 
The excuse given for executing such leases was that it was 
very dangerous for Protestants to enter into and execute 
leases, and as they had to be strong enough for defense, a 
considerable expense was entailed in addition to the risk, and 
they would not undertake the adventure on short leases. Under 
such circumstances perpetual leases were given, but the sys- 
tem continued long after the occasion for it had passed away. 
Young found that many of these leases had been sublet, so he 
considers and treats the first lessee as a sort of landlord, 
which, in fact, he was. As the land and its rent increased in 
value, or as circumstances enabled those who had all these 
various liens or claims on it to exact more for its use, the land 
system of Ireland became, to a great extent, one of occupy- 
ing tenancy, middlemen landlords, and lords proprietors.f The 
middlemen claimed that they were useful to the lords, as the 
occupying tenants were usually so very very poor that no 
" gentleman of fortune would consent to superintend the col- 
lection of rents from them." The lords proprietors were 
usually absentees, living in London, Paris, or at watering 
places, squandering the money drained from the agricultural 
laborers of Ireland, often in very questionable ways. Of the 
middlemen landlords, Arthur Young says : " There is in Ire- 
land a class of small country gentlemen consisting of these 
profit renters. They generally kept a pack of wretched 
hounds with which they wasted their time and their money, 
and were the hardest drinkers in Ireland." He adds : " They 
are the most oppressive tyrants that ever lent their assistance 
to the destruction of a country," and "they will not make 
improvements themselves, and only grant short leases or let 

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., part 2d, page 17. f Ibid. 



268 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

by the year to the real cultivating, occupying tenant, who, 
under these conditions, cannot afford to make improvements." * 
He adds that " they screw up the rent and are rapacious in 
exacting it all. Their excuse for their conduct is that the great 
lord cannot haggle with such tenants, or take their stuff from 
them when they cannot pay money." In this way it often 
happens that these lands are sublet several times, the occupy- 
ing tenant who works the soil having to pay a profit to each 
of these middlemen before he and his family can eat what 
little is left in peace. Arthur Young gave the average rent 
in Ireland at ten shillings and three pence an acre (in 1778), 
that is, an English acre. Some of the land rented then as 
high as one, or even two, pounds an English acre.f Many 
years before Arthur Young's time, a few of the great land- 
lords gave life leases to German " Palatines," but the scheme 
did not work well. Young said that the native Irish, if they 
had an opportunity, would improve the country faster than 
these Germans had been able to do. It is not difficult to see 
how foreign emigrants, brought in under such circumstances, 
would find their position extremely uncomfortable. The 
same authority stated that at the time he wrote the rent of a 
cabin, and garden for potatoes, in most of the countries in 
Ireland, was from one to three pounds a year, the average 
being one pound eleven shillings and ten pence. A cow's 
grass rent was from one to two pounds, the average being one 
pound eleven shillings and ten pence.J A garden patch 
varies from one to half an acre. Sometimes as much as one 
acre and a half. Small occupying tenants sometimes got 
leases of several acres of a mountain side, and improved and 
brought it into cultivation, but had no guarantee for their 
improvements^ Some of the middlemen landlords would 
boast that they spent the part of the rent they got in the 

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., part 2d, page 18. 

f Ibid., page 43. J Ibid., page 26. \ Ibid., page 22. 



ARTHUR YOUNG. 269 

country, while the lords proprietors spent theirs abroad. As 
fast as these deputy noblemen fancied they were rich enough, 
they, too, went abroad and set up for fine gentlemen, and be- 
tween their debts and extravagance, and the debts and ex- 
travagance of the noble lords, the poor cultivator of the soil 
had a hard time of it. One of the worst features of the busi- 
ness has been that the working-tenant was in most cases in 
arrears for his rent. He usually undertook to pay all that 
was possible under favorable circumstances, and the circum- 
stances were not always favorable. In this way he got in 
arrears with the landlord so far that it was almost impossible 
for him to get out of debt. If he had good fortune, the land- 
lord got the advantage of it, and if he had fresh misfortune, 
he went deeper into debt. The under tenants who were in 
arrears for their rent had to furnish teams to the landlords or 
middlemen at half price, to haul hay, corn, gravel or turf, 
and as they must go whenever called on, they sometimes lost 
their own crops when working in this way to pay arrears of 
rent.* Added to all this there was a class of poor men who 
could not even rent a small farm, and for whom there was 
not sufficient remunerative work ; Young says : " States are 
ill-governed which possess people willing to w T ork but who 
cannot find employment." f He adds : " The oppression of 
the landlords in Ireland is the chief cause of the misery of the 
people/' The poorest class would build cabins by the roadside 
or in the ditch, if they were permitted, having no land rented, 
and lived by doing jobs and hiring. The cabins built by the 
cottars were usually built by themselves, and were hovels. 
When a man rented a patch, if there was a cabin on it, he 
repaired it, and, if not, he built one. That was not a charge 
on the landlord. I am particular in giving this data from 
Young, not only because he was a careful and responsible 

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., part 2d, page 19. 
t Ibid., page 43. 



270 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

observer, but because it best illustrates the condition of the 
people, and shows the steps by which the present land system 
in Ireland was created. 

James Redpath, in his " Talks about Ireland/' from more 
recent observations, says "there are 682,237 tenants in Ireland. 
Now out of these, 626,628, or about seventy-three per cent, 
are tenants at will and can be evicted." * Mr. Redpath 
traveled in Ireland a few years ago. He says, in that country 
there are only eight thousand landowners, including owners 
of one acre,f and also, I believe, including the holders of long 
leases, and two thousand of these eight thousand hold more 
land than all the rest put together, and three thousand of the 
eight thousand are absentees." These absentees draw every 
year sixty millions from Ireland. J Mr. Redpath gives as the 
exact figures of Irish landlordism : six thousand small proprie- 
tors ; one thousand one hundred and ninety-eight proprietors 
who own from two to three thousand acres ; one hundred and 
eighty own from ten to twenty thousand acres ; ninety own 
from twenty to fifty thousand acres, and twenty-four own from 
fifty to one hundred thousand acres. Three proprietors own 
upward of one hundred thousand acres. § Mulhall gives 
seventeen thousand five hundred and ten holdings or owners, || 
but it is not stated whether it includes lot owners in towns 
and villages. Tenants, moreover, have been purchasing under 
the recent land acts, and I quote from the Mulhall edition of 
1 884. In it he says that twenty-five thousand eight hundred 
and forty-nine land cases were adjudicated in the twelve 
months ending in August, 1882. Mr. Redpath thinks that 
the landlords ought to be compelled to sell at a fifteen years' 
purchase on Griffith's valuation, the government advancing the 
money.Tf The Irish landlords pay taxes on Griffith's valuation 

* James Redpath's Talks about Ireland, page 91. 

t Ibid., page 90. % Ibid. \ Ibid. 

|| Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266. 

\ James Redpath's Talks about Ireland, page 98. 



EEDPATH. 271 

Mr. Redpath at one time visited and became familiar with the 
condition of the West India Islands. He says, that when the 
British abolished slavery in Jamaica, they refused to abolish 
absentee proprietorship, which is the present burden and curse 
of Jamaica. Mr. Kedpath observes, that fewer crimes in pro- 
portion are committed in Ireland than in England, and also 
says that many rents are paid in Ireland from money sent by 
Irish Americans to relieve parents and friends.* 

" Mr. Frank Battersby, political economist, etc.," has written 
a pamphlet to show the justice of compensating Irish land- 
lords for the damage done them by the recent land acts. He 
says : " England has gone far for the sake of peace with Ire- 
land. She has thrown political economy to the winds, 
restrained freedom of contract in land and denied the land- 
lord's right to do as he pleased with his own." f He adds : 
" When the new rental in Ireland is fixed, two million five 
hundred thousand, or, according to Mr. Chamberlain, four 
million pounds will have been handed over to the tenants out 
of the pockets of the landlords." For this Mr. Battersby 
wants the government to go down into the public pocket 
and reimburse the landlords. In other words, to feed these 
cormorants out of the left pocket instead of the right. He 
says that under the Land Act, " the rental of Ireland has been 
reduced consistently twenty-five per cent. Whatever the 
results of the recent Land Acts may be, they can only strike 
an impartial observer as temporary expedients. So potent is 
the landed interest that any reform that may be demanded by 
the most urgent political necessities, precipitated by a long line 
of dishonest abuses, must, according to many, be supplemented 
by a full recognition of the right of a usurping landlord to 
hold fast his ill-gotten goods for all time. It occurs to us, 
that a movement to compel these aristocrats to disgorge their 

* James Kedpath 's Talks about Ireland, page 94. 
f Compensation to Landlords by Battersby, page 5. 



272 BRITISH LANDHOLDING. 

dishonestly attained gains would be a better thing to do. Un- 
happily, most of these gains have been wasted and are past 
recovery. The Duke of Argyle, in his criticism of Mr. George, 
which is not an argument and little more than a tirade of 
abuse, among other things says : " Everything in America is 
on a gigantic scale, even its forms of villainy, and the villainy 
advocated by Mr. George is an illustration of this even as 
striking as the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky." * On the same 
page he says : " The world has never seen such a preacher of 
unrighteousness as Mr. Henry George." It would not be 
difficult to point out to the duke a " villainy " and an " un- 
righteousness " more colossal than either the Mammoth Cave, 
Niagara, or Mr. George. The British landed aristocrats Avho, 
by fraud, violence and murder, seized a large portion of the 
earth's surface, and exacted for their private emolument rent, 
or tribute, from their fellow-citizens who cultivated it, may 
appear to Americans as an " unrighteousness " much more 
" gigantic." If that was not, then the usurpation of the law- 
making power as a birthright due them from this stolen 
property, used for centuries to perpetuate their ill-gotten gains, 
would certainly be. Not content with this, the descendants 
of these freebootiug sires, have by their pride and extravagance 
so ground the wretched workmen that they at last are forced 
to inquire by what right these exactions are made; and in 
reply the titled landlords pronounce all such inquiries as 
" villainy " and " unrighteousness," and hold up their hands 
in horror, as if the bond that bound them to society had not 
been stained for centuries with crime. We quote from the 
duke the only thing approximating to an argument : " It is one 
thing for any given political society to refuse to divide its 
vacant territory among individual owners. It is quite another 
thing for a political society, which for ages has recognized 

* Duke of Argyle's " Prophet of San Francisco " in Nineteenth Century, 
for April, 1884. 



BASIS OF ARISTOCRATIC TITLE. 273 

such ownership and encouraged it, to break faith with those 
who have acquired such ownership, and have lived and 
labored and bought and sold and willed upon the faith of it." * 
That is a very weak attempt at an assertion of right. He 
claims that his ownership and that of the rest of the British 
aristocracy has been " recognized " and u encouraged." Who 
encouraged it? Certainly nut the poor people plundered by 
them. The " political society " that recognized the rights of 
the British landed aristocracy was a combination of the holders 
of the lands thus taken. The recognition of a thief by a 
society of thieves is not usually considered a very good endorse- 
ment. Are the worst crimes of government forever to be per- 
petuated ? Is it not the higher duty of a " political society " 
to see that the people dwelling in a country are allowed to 
possess their legitimate and natural rights, rather than that a 
handful of usurping aristocrats should be permitted to extort 
a luxurious living from them forever. There are two words 
in the paragraph I have quoted subject matter for inquiry, — 
the words " labored " and " bought." The duke surely does 
not mean that he " labored " for the part of Argyleshire he 
claims, nor can he mean that he " bought " and honestly paid 
for it. That he has sold or leased and willed " on the faith 
of it " is probable. He has collected and appropriated to his 
personal use an immense amount of the production of a vast 
range of country. He has built a magnificent palace at 
Inverary, and residences elsewhere, from the proceeds. He 
and his family have lived like kings from money wrung from 
an honest and hard-worked people. Perhaps conscious that 
the aristocratic claim may not be invulnerable he sets up an- 
other : " My own experience now extends over a period of the 
best part of forty years. During that time I have built more 
than fifty homesteads complete for man and beast. I have 

*Dul;e of Argyle's "Prophet of San Francisco" in Nineteenth Century, 
for April, 1885. 



274 BRITISH LANDHOLDER. 

drained and reclaimed many hundred and enclosed some thou- 
sand acres." Will the duke tell us how many homestead 
fires he has forever extinguished ? He has, indeed " enclosed " 
a good many thousand acres. He discovered that it was more 
profitable (for him) that Argyleshire should produce sheep 
than men and women, and " enclosed " accordingly ■ the poor 
inhabitants escaping to Canada, there to find a region far away 
from the land of their birth, where they could cultivate the soil 
without giving the best part of the proceeds to landlords. 
Many highland villages were thus blotted out by the philo- 
sophical and moral duke, who is shocked because people pro- 
pose to take what he says does not belong to them. But let 
us examine the duke's claim to his dukedom on the ground 
of " improvement." He further says : " I find that I have 
spent on one property alone the sum of forty thousand pounds 
entirely on the improvement of the soil/' * and then he pro- 
ceeds to say that it has not paid as a speculation. Now let us 
understand the duke. He must not mix the " color of his 
title." When he claims the right to exact rent from a good 
sized portion of Great Britain, taken by force and " recog- 
nized," as he pleads, by a " political society," that is one thing, 
and one that the British people can settle in their own way 
for the best interests of all. When, on the other hand, he 
brings in " fifty homesteads complete for man and beast," and 
forty thousand pounds, the proper way for him would be to 
make an account current. Set down all that his family have 
exacted in rent, deducting what would be his individual share 
as a private citizen of Argyleshire. Then set down all the 
charges for improvement which added value to the soil, made 
by him and his predecessors, and deduct this amount from the 
first figure, or from what he and his had ever taken from 
Argyleshire. We apprehend, if this kind of a settlement was 



* Duke of Argyle's " Prophet of San Francisco" in Nineteenth Century, 
for April, 1884. 



PLEA OF THE ARISTOCRATIC LANDHOLDER. 275 

made with the firm of "Campbell & Co.," that their only 
mode of escape from the result would be to "file a petition in 
bankruptcy." This literary duke utters another warning, 
wailing cry. He says : " If all owners of land, great and 
small, might be robbed, and ought to be robbed of that which 
society had from time immemorial allowed them and encouraged 
them to acquire and to call their own ; if the thousands of 
men and women and children who directly and indirectly live 
on rent * * * are all equally to be ruined by the confiscation 
of the fund on which they depend, are there not other funds 
that would be swept away ? " * The " Prophet of San Fran- 
cisco " seems to have made as great an impression on the duke 
as Nathan did on David. This nobleman has written a work, 
" The Reign of Law." The book considers the " reign of law 
in the world around us and within us." Should he ever revise 
it perhaps it would be well to incorporate an utterance of Black- 
stone's : " No human law is of any validity if contrary to the 
laws of nature." Hcbbes wrote : " The laws of nature are im- 
mutable and eternal, for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, 
iniquity, acception of persons can never be made lawful." f 
One more quotation : " The soil was not created for idle enjoy- 
ment of un occupying owners." 

The physical and intellectual development of the British 
Empire, with all its faults, and its ghastly pictures of the 
calamities of the poor, is still marvelous. Her rural popula- 
tion and her agricultural laborers, although they have unhap- 
pily ceased to be a political power, occasionally evince a genius 
second to that of no people, and an enterprise capable of rising 
above even their adverse circumstances. Commerce, manu- 
factures and their associate crafts constitute the backbone of 
the British Empire. The British people of to-day are to 
some extent cosmopolitan. Her business relations with the 

* Duke of Argyle's "Prophet of San Francisco " in Nineteenth Century, 
for April, 1884. 

f Hobbe's Leviathan, vol. iii., page 145. 



276 BRITISH LANDH0LDI3G. 

outside world are necessary for her existence. Of the food 
her people eat, sixty-one per cent, of the wheat, thirty-seven 
per cent, of the meat, fifty-eight per cent, of the cheese and 
butter, not to mention other articles, are imported iuto the 
British Kingdom.* London, once a place where population 
had to be brought to keep up the standard, is now rendered 
so healthy by improved sanitary regulations as to exhibit a 
natural increase. There is a German population in London 
large as that of a first-class town in the German Empire. 
The Irish population of London is greater than that of any 
city in Ireland, except Dublin and Belfast. London has 
absorbed much of the rural population, like the other cities. 
Agriculture, instead of being on the increase, is on the decline, 
as more than two million acres of arable land have been con- 
verted to pasture in the past few years. Mallock contends 
that the distress is limited : " Let us make the advance of the 
poorer classes as partial as possible, and want and misery as 
widespread as possible, yet, on my calculation, and on my 
supposition, at least three-fourths of them, during the past 
forty years, or twenty-two million five hundred thousand out 
of thirty million have grown, all of them, demonstrably 
richer." f What this gentleman forgets is that it is with 
human society as with a steam engine, when an unnatural 
strain is put upon it the weakest parts give way. Mr. Giffen 
and Mr. Mallock both seem to think that because a few men 
of great energy are able to rise above all the depressing cir- 
cumstances that stand in the path of the poor workingmen 
of Britain, all of them who do not exhibit similar qualities 
are imbeciles, and should justly bear the lot of poverty 
inflicted on them. Such a conclusion is not just. Society 
and law has not to do with the few exceptional cases, but the 
condition of the great masses, and especially the condition of 
the poorest and most helpless. 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 207. 

* Mallock's Property and Progress, page 207. 



DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE. 277 

The commercial and manufacturing power of England has 
steadily risen for centuries. It is a great power, but it is not yet 
the dominant power. There is another unhappy circumstance 
connected with it. It has developed, and is developing an 
aristocracy of wealth, differing from the other aristocracy, but 
still with objectionable features. While that element is con- 
servative, the great working, throbbing business nerve of 
England is not insensible to the struggle going on with the 
landed aristocracy. The latter stubbornly temporize and resist. 
Political economists of the Manchester school do not expect 
much from the agricultural interest, and seem to think that 
they can make cotton goods and iron enough to feed the whole 
British Empire, if the lords and dukes should make every 
foot of land in Britain a sheep-walk. Let them remember 
that no country can permanently exist apart from its agricul- 
tural resources. If the incubus of the landed aristocracy was 
removed, and the land divided into small holdings owned by 
the actual tillers of the soil, it would add infinitely to the 
comfort, power and wealth of the British people. One of their 
political economists, Mr. Malthus, wrote : " If a tract of land 
as large as Britain were added to the island, and sold in small 
lots, the amelioration of the condition of the common people 
would be striking, although the rich would always be com- 
plaining of the high price of labor, the difficulty of getting 
work done and the pride of the lower classes." * 

* Malthus's Principles of Population, page 291. 
24 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ABOEIGINAL AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND TENUEE. 

Agricultural and roving populations — Tribal government — Aboriginal 
money and exchange — Tribal boundaries — Homes and hunting grounds 
— Male and female occupations — Sparse populations — Decay and degra- 
dation of the Aborigines under European pressure — Religious beliefs 
— Rights in land not bought and sold — Communal land, but individual 
property — Caribbee and Arowaks — Three classes of Aborigines — Land 
laws of Cherokees and Choctaws — The soil common, but improvements 
personal property — John Ross — Corn Plant — Bushyhead — Land in sev- 
eralty prescribed by the whites — Treaties used to secure foothold and land 
— Repudiated when the Indians grow weak — Washington — Gen. Knox — 
Chief Justice Marshall — Cass and Jackson versus the Supreme Court — 
Indian inertia — Zuni and its rich man — A Caribbee political economist. 

Little more than two hundred and fifty years have elapsed 
since European settlements begun in that part of North 
America now known as the United States. At that time a 
chattel title to land was unknown upon the continent. The 
aboriginal inhabitants of all kinds claimed the sovereignty of 
the regions they occupied, but individual proprietorships in 
the soil did not exist, and through all their intercourse with 
the European settlers have been, and still are, obnoxious to 
their political, social and religious ideas. Considerable con- 
fusion and many Indian wars resulted from the early attempts 
to fix individual and exclusive title to portions of American 
soil. When the Indians, in the early history of the settle- 
ments, relinquished tracts of land to the European colonists, 
they merely understood by it a joint occupancy by the whites, 
such as they had themselves. It was difficult to make them 
comprehend that individuals they had never seen, and who 
278 



THREE CLASSES OF ABORIGINES. 279 

had never even visited the shores of their country, should lay 
claim to their land. 

The native peoples of America differ in many things, radi- 
cally, from each other, and yet all of them have much in 
common with the human race elsewhere. Long separated 
from the people of the Eastern hemisphere, peculiar ideas had 
developed features of society that seemed remarkable to the 
first European discoverers. Clashing interests led to hostile 
feeling, and in subsequent intercourse our observations have 
not often been of an impartial or friendly character. We 
should, therefore, qualify ourselves with a charitable spirit on 
approaching the subject, and, if possible, cast our prejudices 
behind us. At the date of the European discovery three dis- 
tinct or separate classes of society may be said to have existed, 
and each of these embraced many separate tribes. The first 
consisted of the organized governments, of which the most 
distinguished types were those found in Mexico and Peru. 
The second class would include peoples who lived in commu- 
nities and villages, chiefly by agriculture, and possessing some 
manufactures. The third class includes the nomads, or wan- 
derers. In Mexico, these latter were, in the time of Cortez, 
styled chicamecas. This, Herara informs us, was not the 
name of any Indian or tribe, but a general term used by the 
civilized Indians themselves, which meant nomads, or roving 
men, without fixed habitations. At the time of the dis- 
covery, and since, large tribes and nations roved about the 
central, western and northern portions of North America. It 
is true that many tribes existed in the regions where these 
wanderers roved who were not nomads, but lived largely by 
agriculture, and remained stationary as far as they could. 
One roving tribe, in early times located as agriculturists, be- 
came noted even among wanderers, the Shawnees, or, more 
correctly, Shawannos, " Men of the bow and arrow." Another 
people, of comparatively modern aggregation, were stray men 
from many nations, chiefly, however, from the Creeks. 



280 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

They located in Florida, and were called Seminoles, or 
" Wandering men." 

The most striking class presented to the European was the 
nomadic or wild Indians. These rovers of the plains or 
forest possessed a simple dignity of manner and deportment 
rarely exhibited by the people of more boasted civilizations. 
They are, and have been, the most independent people in the 
world. Forms of society and artificial modes of life do not 
enslave them. They enjoy the freest government on the 
earth, for the little authority there is exists merely by the 
consent of the governed. This is carried so far that, to a 
white man, it often appears as if there was no government at 
all. These national or tribal governments never get so large 
that the popular assembly or council cannot consider and 
determine all questions that arise. Living largely from the 
natural resources of the country, consequently driven to scat- 
ter for food, and not possessing any centralizing force in their 
government, it is not wonderful that the country was overrun 
by wandering bands. Murder, adultery and theft have usually 
been punished among them. The grades and character of 
punishment differed. The council considered the matter, and 
the nearest relative, or aggrieved party, became the avenger 
and executor of the popular decree. This gave their modes 
of administering justice an appearance of vengeance rather 
than law when judged by Europeans. Among these nomadic 
tribes the same ambition exists for public honor and distinc- 
tion as found elsewhere. With them, however, the honor 
conferred by public position was its only emolument. The 
desire to be a chief, a counselor or even an orator, is great. 
While they are never boisterous in their mirth, and rarely 
show even its milder expressions among strangers, they have 
a fine sense of humor which is often sarcastic. The least 
civilized and nomadic orators speak with great deliberation 
and precision. They never hurry and never think of inter- 
rupting each other. When the French first settled in Louis- 



ABORIGINAL CURRENCY. 281 

iana, one of the chiefs at a council held with them was ob- 
served to be trying to conceal his merriment ; on being asked 
what amused him, he at first evaded the question, but on 
being pressed, said : " These French are like a flock of geese : 
they all speak at once." 

Among the nomads taxes were unknown. Public works 
were, of course, impossible. Their records were chiefly oral 
traditious, confided to their best men to prevent interpolations 
or changes, and their written record, besides inscriptions on 
the rocks, was the wampum belt, its figures and symbols con- 
veying certain ideas, the years being enumerated by knots 
tied in the belt. At certain periods and important councils 
these were brought out, and, by their wise men, read or 
explained. 

While commerce or exchange was largely confined to bar- 
ter, a circulating medium was not unknown. They never 
hesitated to use the money of the whites, and very soon under- 
stood its value perfectly. Before the European settlements, 
and, to some extent, since, they used for money, wampum, 
beads, rare shells, and pieces of copper and salt. The wam- 
pum circulated generally among many nations, and had a 
fixed value, as it required great labor to drill the fine hole 
through the wampum bead.* The wildest tribes on the con- 
tinent had the most stringent regulations against the waste of 
food. When game was killed the parties were compelled to 
save the whole of it, even portions of the intestines were used 
for food. In their migrations when rich spots were found 
containing wild potatoes, rye, nuts or fruits, the discovery 
was publicly announced by a crier, so that all could partici- 
pate. When their camp became no longer fresh they removed 
to another spot, the new location having been agreed upon. 
They were very jealous of intrusion on lands belonging to 
the tribe or nation, the wildest nomads had a country they 

* Lawson's History of North Carolina, page 195. 



282 ABOEIGINAL TITLE. 

claimed. They sometimes claimed hunting grounds as espe- 
cially their own, and, in case the tribe was strong enough, pre- 
vented others from using them. There were also hunting regions 
not specially claimed, upon which different tribes hunted as on 
a public or common domain, and also hunting or roaming 
grounds that were a debatable region. A large portion of 
Kentucky was in this condition, and thus became the scene 
of many a struggle, the name meaning "bloody ground." 
Each of the petty nations, small or great, held the frontiers 
of their country as sacredly and jealously as the most his- 
toric nation. Their traditions carefully referred to their 
boundaries. Like other nations, many of their wars have 
grown out of questions of boundary. At the close of these 
wars the frontiers would be recognized or fixed, and it was 
considered an affront to pass them without their permission. 
Such were the modes by which these nations held those 
portions of the earth's surface that they occupied. The uses 
they made of it they considered their own concern, and it 
cannot be said that their tenure lacked anything in form 
or dignity from the right of country universally held by all 
nations. 

These roving peoples of America thus lived a life of inde- 
pendent freedom, subsisting to a great extent upon the natural 
productions of a rich country. Barbarous to some extent 
they were, but not brutish or unmanly. If they had few of 
the refinements of civilization, they were at least not embar- 
rassed by its cares, or exhausted by its fearfully laborious toil. 
They lived in the fresh air, and were not condemned to the 
cellars and dilapidated buildings in which the very poor 
laboring people of civilized society are crowded. Their 
shoulders were not bent by working in the coal vein, or 
stooping over the bench in badly ventilated workshops. The 
impression that they were lazy is not altogether well-founded, 
because there is no exercise more exhausting than the chase, 
and the necessary military occupation of the male inhabitants 



RIGHTS IN LAND COMMON. 283 

required much effort, privation and watchfulness. It was for 
this reason that their women performed many laborious tasks, 
such as pitching and moving the house or tent, dressing the 
skins or gathering fruits, roots or berries. This work is per- 
formed in the open air, and I question if they work much 
harder than the wives and daughters of poor laboring men in 
civilized communities. 

While individual ownership of land is abhorrent to all their 
social and religious ideas, and even the natural productions of 
the earth are considered common to all, and no pre-emptive 
right of discovery in them can exist until these have been 
gathered, it is a mistake to suppose that they are communists. 
No people guard the rights of mine and thine more jealously, 
concerning all things they regard as property. Their arms, 
tents, horses, clothing, indeed, everything they own, is claimed 
with great tenacity. This distinction of rights extends into the 
family, where the wife and the children have each their prop- 
erty. While this is true, their hospitality is unbounded, and 
extends even to their enemies, should they consent to receive 
them. They never refuse to give to those who are in want, of 
their own tribe. In distress they never hesitate to go and ask 
each other, and it is considered mean to refuse, but, at the same 
time, if one of them permits himself to become a chronic beg- 
gar, and refuses to take proper steps to support himself, he is 
regarded as a common enemy. Some tribes have disposed of 
such persons summarily. It is needless to deny that their 
over-lavish giving is a serious check to the disposition to 
accumulate property. Why should a man struggle to acquire 
a surplus if the probabilities are that it will be claimed to 
supply the wants of those in distress. Their acceptance of 
ransom, or price of blood, in case of a murder or manslaugh- 
ter, is considered venal, but the question whether it shall be 
received is determined in council, and it is usually accepted, 
only in cases where there are mitigating circumstances, or 
where it is a case between tribes, and is a species of diplomacy. 



284 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

or a humane policy to prevent interminable war. Questions 
as to the redundancy of population do not afflict them. As- 
tonishment has been expressed at the small population occu- 
pying large areas among the wandering tribes. The answer 
is simple. In the first place, large families of children are 
rare among them. Owing to the necessary hardships of their 
mode of life the sickly and delicate do not survive childhood. 
These causes added to occasional scarcity of food and the fre- 
quency of wars, render the vaticinations of a Malthus unneces- 
sary. In general terms, under such a form of society, a dense 
population and accumulations of great wealth are impossible. 
It is worthy of note that these wandering tribes, independent 
of missionary efforts, are all believers in the Great Spirit, or 
Unknown God. Pure theists ; for all their superstitious terms 
and symbols are mere mythical figures, used to convey an 
idea not to be construed literally. Atheists in any sense they 
certainly are not. A man going among them and openly 
denying the existence of a Great Spirit, would doubtless be 
looked upon with horror, but it is difficult to get them to 
believe in a systematized religion. The highest forms of society 
or civilizations in America, such as that in Mexico, were 
connected with priestcraft, and even human sacrifice, while 
the lowest and most barbarous were animated by a vague 
theism. 

Next to the nomads or wanderers, comes the class that had 
more fixed habitations, and depended chiefly on agriculture 
for subsistence. These, of course, varied a great deal as to 
their condition, but the larger masses of the population 
of North America, at the time of the European discovery, 
were a quiet, industrious set of people, chiefly living in vil- 
lages and towns, subsisting by agriculture. Narvaez, De 
Soto and the Huguenots found a people with big fields, " Tal- 
lahassee," occupying the Atlantic seaboard. Some of these 
fields we are told were ten miles long. They domesticated 
many fowls and a few animals, and even fish, trained to catch 



AGRICULTURAL VILLAGES. 285 

other fish * and raised a large variety of vegetables and roots. 
In the pictures made by Jacob Le Moyne, who was with the 
Huguenots, the men and women are represented as working 
in the fields together. f They manufactured and wore cloth- 
ing. We read in the narrative of De Soto's expedition that 
these adventurers traveled for hundreds of miles among such 
people. Often procuring corn from their storehouses, and, 
finally, that in the mountains they came to a people, the Chal- 
aque (Cherokees), who were almost naked, having a strip of 
cloth around them, and wearing on their shoulders the dressed 
skins of the " cattle." Even these people lived in villages, 
and had small farms in the valleys, subsisting partially by 
hunting. Some of the purely agricultural aborigines were in 
a tolerably advanced condition. They built high mounds 
and kept the sacred fire on them, and had a species of heredi- 
tary government in the female line. No individual title to 
land existed among any of these peoples. They had for each 
town or village a large field, or more than one, in which every 
family had a portion that they cultivated. Eights therein 
were not bought or sold. Each had an interest, and it was the 
usufruct share interest in a common property. All the pro- 
ducts of labor were individual property. They had fixed 
dwellings, comfortably constructed and furnished. They had 
knowledge of the precious metals including copper, but not 
of iron. They had earthenware and wicker-ware of good 
manufacture. In carefully kept medicine baskets the women 
had many preparations for medicine and articles for the toilet. 
They used mediums of exchange as well as barter. Their 
forms of government, though mainly of popular acceptance, 
were more elaborate than those of the nomads. Their only 
taxation was labor for the big fields, public buildings or other 
necessary public work. Rents were not exacted even by the 
state. From all indications these partially civilized and in- 

* Peter Martyr. f Hakluyt's Voyages. 



286 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

dustrial peoples were fragments of more powerful nations 
undergoing a steady decay. The inroad of the Europeans 
hastened their destruction. Many of them attempted a resist- 
ance, and the superior arms and discipline of the Europeans 
made the effort very disastrous. 

On the West India Islands a condition of affairs existed in 
some respects different from that on the mainland. The best 
Spanish authorities inform us that these islands were popu- 
lated by two different classes. One nation was styled Aro- 
waks, and the other, Caribs, or Caribbees. An examination 
of their languages will show that these were nicknames they 
gave each other. The so-called Arowaks, or "meal-eaters/' 
were a peaceful agricultural people, living in villages. They 
planted corn, and lived upon that and the manioc ; the roots 
from half an acre of the latter will support a family. They 
also cultivated and smoked tobacco; Peter Martyr informing 
us that they would pluck it as they walked along, roll it up 
into a coarse cigar and smoke it. They raised many vegeta- 
bles and manufactured cloth from plants they cultivated. 
Their houses were stationary and tolerably comfortable. They 
had tribal and local governments. Each man cultivated his 
patch, sometimes in a common field, but often an individual 
patch. Buying and selling land was not practiced, but they 
traded in everything else. They were a peaceful, agricultural 
people, living partly on fish. 

At the time of the European discovery no animal larger 
than a dog was found on any of these islands. They had not 
only small boats, but vessels of considerable size, in which 
they sometimes made a fire. 

The other class or tribe, — for there appears to have been 
few distinct tribes among them,— the " Caribbees" (robbers), — 
for this was the name the suffering, peaceful people gave 
them in their own soft, musical language, — infested rather 
than resided on the islands. They were a species of roving 
pirates, making voyages all over the Caribbean Sea, and visit- 



ABOKIGINES AS SLAVES. 287 

ing both North and South America. They were a cruel, 
warlike race, addicted to cannibalism. They not only robbed 
the peaceful Arowaks of all they had, but actually roasted 
and ate them. One Spanish writer tells us that they took a 
great many Arowak women and kept them in a separate island 
to raise grain and fruit for them. This story has often been 
repeated by the adventurers of the old Spanish main. That 
the Caribbees plundered as well as roasted and ate the hapless 
agriculturists there can be no doubt. It was on this account 
that Columbus proposed to Queen Isabella that these Caribs 
should be captured and sold into slavery, to aid in defraying 
the "heavy charges to be borne by her majesty." This, to 
her honor, she declined, but her successors, colleagues and 
subordinates were not so conscientious. It was, however, 
found easier to enslave the peaceful Arowaks, the greater por- 
tion of whom miserably perished, many of them dying in the 
mines. The same kind of slavery was carried on, as far as 
possible, on the continent, and, it is needless to say, that the 
industrial, agricultural populations chiefly suffered. In the 
narrative of Cabezo de Vaca,* who, with two companions, 
traveled across the continent, from Texas to the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia, he mentions meeting a company of Spanish soldiers 
driving three hundred and thirty of the inhabitants, chained 
together, to work in the mines of Mexico. This was prior to 
1520. Whole communities and towns were thus depopu- 
lated. Still later, this attempt to enslave the aboriginal 
inhabitants was continued. At the close of the Tuscarora 
war, seven hundred prisoners of these people were, in one day, 
sold into slavery in the city of Charleston. The destruction 
among the ancient inhabitants was largely from the partially 
civilized tribes. They suffered in several ways, not only 
being killed and enslaved, but driven by persecution to be- 
come nomads and wanderers. For this reason the nomadic 

* Buckingham Smith's Translation Cabeza de Vaca. 



288 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

portion of the native inhabitants became larger after the 
European discovery. 

The third or higher class inhabiting North and South 
America at the date of the discovery by Columbus is best 
represented by the two nations found in Peru and Mexico. 
These were monarch ical go vernmen ts and theocracies. They had 
a written or pictoriographic language not inferior to that of many 
great ancient nations. The power of life and death lay in the 
hands of the sovereign. Their public buildings were vast and 
showed in many things high stages of art. They had fine 
gardens, great aviaries, aqueducts, and a system of messengers 
or expressmen. Within three days of their arrival, Monte- 
zuma showed Cortez a pictoriograph exhibiting the Spanish 
fleet under Narvaez, then anchored in the Gulf of Mexico. It 
gave the number and character of the vessels so that Cortez 
was able to act on the information. They possessed a knowl- 
edge of the precious metals, and it was their riches in these 
that led to their ruin. Many of their articles of clothing were 
of fine quality. Their feather work has probably never been 
excelled. They had codes of law, and among other regulations 
the drinking of intoxicating liquors was forbidden under pain 
of death. Persons over forty -five years were exempted from 
the operation of the law, but even in them excesses were pun- 
ished. Their forms of government were different from those 
of the Europeans, but, trying them by an impartial standard, 
they cannot be justly said to have been inferior to the great 
mass of organized or civilized governments of that age. Agri- 
culture was to a large extent carried on by irrigation. Sys- 
tems of irrigation were under the management of the govern- 
ment, and the expense of maintaining them was by tax or 
labor. Land, however, was not sold as a chattel, nor is there 
evidence that the rulers claimed or gave it away. The services 
of any or all citizens might be claimed by the monarch. The 
only privileged class except military leaders were the priests, 
who were compelled to be simple and abstemious in their lives. 



CHEROKEES, CREEKS AND CHOCTAWS. 289 

It will thus be seen that in aboriginal America there was no 
such thing as chattelization of land. It did not even constitute 
the basis of political power. Each nation or tribe claimed its 
own territory, but claimed it for the equal benefit of all its in- 
habitants. At that time individual dealing in land did not exist 
to any great extent anywhere. 

It is to the pitiable claims growing out of right of discovery 
and right of conquest that the complete chattelization of Ameri- 
can land is due. Everything from the gold and silver of the 
country to the people and the land they lived on was some- 
thing to steal and sell. In this way the foundation was laid 
for a system by which certain persons and classes will be able, 
if it is continued, to levy a tax on agriculture and agriculturists 
for all time. 

Chattel title the aboriginal populations have resisted as far 
as they were able. The same struggle is going on to-day. 
Some of the tribes, largely those who were agricultural, were 
induced to form governments modeled after the state govern- 
ments of the North American republic. The strongest and 
most notable are the organized governments of the Choctaws, 
Chickasaws, Seminoles, Creeks and Cherokees. The latter has 
a chief and assistant chief, elected every four years, who are 
simply governor and lieutenant-governor. They have a 
senate and lower house elected each two years, a supreme 
court of three judges, and district courts, and an organized 
school system. Their government is indeed not inferior to 
that of several of the territories. It is worthy of note, how- 
ever, that in the written constitution of all these governments 
the land is declared to be national or common property, equal 
to all. Its use has never yet been made taxable. Improve- 
ments thereon are declared to be the " indefeasible " property 
of the occupant. Under law these improvements descend to 
heirs, or may be sold ; but if the land is not cultivated for two 
years, it reverts to the public domain. In addition, the amount 
that may be cultivated by one person can be reduced by law, 
25 



290 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

so that all may, if they desire, have an equal portion. Monopoly 
in land is forbidden by the terms of their written constitutions. 
It is a striking fact that these people, even in forming govern- 
ments modeled after that of the United States, include their 
own land system in plain, unmistakable terms. As has been 
said, monopolization of the earth's surface and taxing the cul- 
tivator of land for rent is extremely obnoxious to the ideas of 
the American Indian. 

In taking this course they not only lacked support from the 
United States government, but have encountered great oppo- 
sition. They are at present engaged in an active struggle to 
preserve this system. Every year bills are introduced into 
Congress, and occasionally one is passed, to compel a tribe to 
take their land in severalty. Many of their sincere friends 
even consider this the test of civilization, and seem to think 
that the true way to civilize an Indian is to enable him to sell 
land. The aborigine has learned a good deal from the pale 
face, but has not yet been educated up to the point of thinking 
that land can be sold as a chattel. The best indication of their 
feeling on the subject may be gathered from the fact that while 
there has been a law on the United States statute book since 
1862 authorizing and encouraging the Indians to take lands in 
severalty or to hold them by individual chattel ownership, very 
few of them have availed themselves of the privilege. It is 
now proposed to compel them by law to take chattel titles. 
Some well-meaning people favor this proposition under an 
impression that if the Indians were forced to adopt this feature 
of American " civilization" and become private landholders 
and speculators, they might possibly adopt ideas which, with 
more reason, have been styled " civilized." The movement, 
however, receives its chief inspiration from land speculators 
who wish to get possession of large portions of valuable 
Indian reservations. 

The Indian resists private landholding with great vigor. 
It is against all their traditions, religion or morals. One of 



CONSTITUTIONAL TITLE IN COMMON. 291 

their most accomplished men, John Ross, said : " As far as I 
am concerned, it would be for my interest to have the land in 
severalty, for I could make gain of it, but the poor people of 
my nation would soon be without homes." On August 1st, 
1838, at Aquohee Camp, I. T., when the united Cherokee 
constitution was framed, their proceedings began : " Whereas 
the title of the Cherokee people to their lands is the most an- 
cient, pure and absolute known to man, its date is beyond the 
reach of human record ; its validity confirmed and illustrated 
by possession, and enjoyment, antecedent to all pretence of claim 
by any other portion of the human race." 

The first article of the constitution of the Cherokee nation 
provides : " The lands of the Cherokee nation shall remain 
the common property, but the improvements made thereon and 
in the possession of the citizens of the nation are the exclusive 
and indefeasible property of the citizens respectively who made 
or may rightfully be in possession of them." * Mr. Bushy- 
head, the present chief of the Cherokees, in an elaborate 
article in the New York Independent a year or two ago, dis- 
cussed the question from the Indian standpoint. He called 
attention to the fact that the lands of the whites were rapidly 
drifting into the hands of a privileged class, and he predicted 
the impoverishment of the laboring people, both whites and 
Indians, by this policy, and stated that his people were steadily 
improving in condition under their system of holding land in 
common. The Creek nation, or, more correctly, confederacy, 
is composed of the fragments of many of the agricultural tribes 
formerly living in the Mobilian basin. All of these in their 
old home and in their new one repudiate individual holding 
of land, and consider it the first step to homeless poverty. 
They live by agriculture and cattle raising, and although they 
have been moved about from place to place, sometimes in 
chains, to meet the demands of white aggression, they are an 

* Laws of the Cherokee Nation, page 9. 



292 ABOKIGLKAL TITLE. 

industrious and rural people. The Choctaws, by their treaty 
of 1866, were compelled to admit some provisions in it looking 
to allotment of lands in severalty, but so uncompromising has 
been their opposition that this has never been accomplished. 

The condition of Indian tribes and Indian peoples differ 
widely, but in one thing they are all alike : entertaining fixed 
aversion to individual title to land. If they have not been 
able to hold their own with the European emigrants and their 
descendants, the reason may be found in the weakness of the 
tribes and their isolation. While the French and Spanish 
intermarried with them to a great degree, the British settlers 
in America did so only to a partial and very limited extent. 
We thus find in the old French and Spanish colonies large 
communal or common fields, and a system of local tenure 
not so widely dissimilar from the native modes. The English 
and American settlers, on the other hand, as they approached 
the Indian communities, contemplated their removal and 
overthrow. The first object in founding a new settlement 
was the prospective rise in value of the land, and the oppor- 
tunity of making money in that way. An assimilation, or 
even partial copying of the aboriginal idea of land tenure, 
was, therefore, impossible. It is to be regretted that the 
modes of obtaining these Indian lands were not always char- 
acterized by honesty and humanity. Laws were even enacted 
by the United States to prevent the Indians from selling land, 
when they were forced to sell, to any party but the United 
States, it having thus reduced the buyers to one customer, 
proceeded to use the whole powers of the government to com- 
pel them to sell, and then offered them an insignificant trifle 
for large tracts, bearing no relation to the speculative prices 
the white purchasers expected to obtain for them. The whole 
system of acquiring the Indian lands for a century has been 
one of violence, and the arbitrary exercise of superior power 
too often supplemented by dishonesty and chicanery. 

Indian lands, from the beginning of the government have 



GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HENRY KNOX. 293 

usually been obtained by treaty. Such had been the practice 
under the British, French and Spanish governments. These 
were merely contracts or bargains, both parties having a voice^ 
in them. Since the victims have become weak in numbers 
and reduced in influence, treaties with them have been de- 
nounced and even suspended by law. When the republic 
was first established it was a question much discussed as to 
whether Indian treaties should be ratified by the senate. 
George Washington, in a communication to the senate, Sep- 
tember 17, 1789, said: 

" It is said to be the general understanding and practice of 
nations, as a check on the mistakes and indiscretions of min- 
isters and commissioners, not to consider any treaty negotiated 
and signed by such officers as final and conclusive until rati- 
fied by the sovereign or government from whom they derive 
powers. This practice has been adopted by the United 
States respecting their treaties with European nations, and I 
am inclined to think it would be advisable to observe it in 
the conduct of our treaties with the Indians, for though such 
treaties, being, on their part, made by their chiefs and rulers, 
need not be ratified by them, yet, being formed, on our part, 
by the agency of subordinate officers, it seems to be both 
prudent and reasonable that their acts should not be binding 
on the nation until approved and ratified by the government.* 

In a letter of General Knox, then Secretary of War, to 
President Washington, of date July 7th, 1789, he urges fair 
and conciliatory dealings and says : " It would reflect honor on 
the new government, and be attended with happy effects, were 
a declarative law to be passed that the Indian tribes possess 
the right of soil of all lands within their limits, respectively, 
and that they are not to be divested thereof, but in consequence 
of fair and bona fide purchases made under the authority of and 
with the express approbation of the United States." He says 

* American State Papers, vol. i., Indian Affairs, page 58. 



294 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

further in the same letter: "How different would be the 
sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of 
exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of 
population, we had preserved through all difficulties and at last 
imparted our knowledge of cultivation and the arts to the 
aborigines of the country, by which the source of future life and 
happiness has been preserved and extended. But it has been 
conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North 
America. This opinion is probably more convenient than just." * 
In a previous letter of June 15th, 1789, he said: "The In- 
dians, being the prior occupants, possess the right of soil. It 
cannot be taken from them except by their free consent or by 
the right of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess 
them on any other principle would be a gross violation of the 
fundamental laws of nature, and of that distributive justice 
which is the glory of a nation." 

Washington and the founders of the republic uttered, as 
occasion offered, similar sentiments. When we consider the 
many reckless modes by which Indian lands were obtained 
and the subordination of the sentiments quoted from Knox to 
the interests of those who wished to get possession of these 
lands, we are forced to regret that all were not animated by 
equally honorable and humane sentiments. On account of the 
constant aggressive policy of the white settlers, the Iroquois 
chief, Corn Plant, in his old age said: "Where is the land 
upon which our children and their children after them are to 
lie down ? You told us that the line drawn from Pennsyl- 
vania to Lake Ontario would mark it forever on the east, and 
the line from Beaver Creek to Pennsylvania would mark it on 
the west, and we see it is not so; for first one comes and then 
another, and takes it away by order of that people which you 
tell us promised to secure it to us." f 

* American State Papers, vol. i., Indian Affairs, page 53. 
f Hall and Kenney's Indian Tribes, vol. i., page 98. 



CASS AND CIVILIZATION. 295 

The policy steadily pursued by the government was one of 
acquisition, removal, reduction of reservations, bad faith, 
threats and aggressive measures, often leading to Indian wars. 
If the Indians yielded without resistance, hard terms were im- 
posed on them ; and if they took up arms, they lost every- 
thing. The government never hesitated by presents or honors 
to induce Indian chiefs and representatives to concede terms 
such as their people had never authorized them to accept. 
There has been all through American history two classes of 
public men. One of these has constantly urged fair dealing 
with the aborigines ; the other has resorted to questionable ex- 
pedients to secure unfair terms from them. In the funeral 
oration over one eminent politician of the republic, it was said 
eulogistieally that " he had obtained more land for less money 
than any man who had ever dealt with Indians." The su- 
preme court, when presided over by Chief Justice Marshall, 
having given a decision recognizing a fair measure of Indian 
rights, other prominent public men were much exercised. In 
the cabinet of General Jackson the questions involved in the 
decision were discussed, and although it was a remarkable 
proceeding, a review of the decision was prepared by General 
Cass, then Secretary of War, and was read in manuscript to 
the cabinet and published in the Globe of March 31st, 1832.* 
In this remarkable paper we find the state's rights doctrine 
very strongly enunciated, and a proposition on another general 
question which we consider it worth while to copy : 

" 1. That civilized communities have a right to take pos- 
session of a country inhabited by barbarous tribes, to assume 
jurisdiction over them, and to ' combine within narrow limits/ 
or, in other words, to appropriate to their own use such por- 
tions of the territory as they think proper. 

" 2. That in the exercise of this right such communities are 
the judges of the extent of jurisdiction to be assumed and of 
territory to be acquired." f 

* Smith's Life of Lewis Cass, page 249. f Ibid., page 250. 



296 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

The only other formula, as a basis of land title, at all 
equal to it is the celebrated one, "Resolved 1st. That the 
earth belongs to the saints." " Resolved 2. That we are the 
saints." 

When the Americas were first discovered by Europeans, 
they were " taken possession of" on the plea of extending 
Christianity. As the " Christianity " plea had no doubt lost 
some of its aroma before it reached the administration of Presi- 
dent Jackson, " civilization " is made to take its place. 

A nation having passed the early and more turbulent stages 
of its career, is apt to seek for general principles to fortify not 
only the ideas, but the acts on which it was founded. Higher 
conceptions of justice usually in the end triumph over lower 
and cruder. It is and must always be a source of regret 
to statesmen, that precedents not founded on honor or equity 
should have been created, and that the title possessed by the 
American people should be stained by blood and unfair deal- 
ing. The ancient inhabitants of the country w T ere in a decline 
both as to population and power. That decline was greatly 
accelerated by the European settlements. The agricultural 
tribes were not only reduced in numbers, but in wealth, 
industry and standing. Many nations at one time agricul- 
tural became wanderers. Tribes were driven from place 
to place and stripped of their lands so often that it is 
not wonderful that the spirit to improve their homes died 
within them. They were deprived of their natural means 
of support and subject to the degrading influences of pauper- 
ization. 

There have not been lacking advocates of the theory that 
their system of tenure was the cause of their misfortunes. 
There is not the slightest foundation for this. Their mode of 
land tenure is one that has been common to the great masses 
of mankind, and was one of the redeeming traits in their 
social system. It has been urged, with more apparent reason, 
that they are inert, and lack progressive enterprise. How 



A RICH ABORIGINE. 297 

much of this is natural to them, and how much of it has been 
created by their unhappy intercourse with the whites, is a 
grave question. If their people are not characterized by 
enterprise, and their villages adorned with great monuments 
of human power and skill, there is a freedom and independ- 
ence in their arcadian life that has proved seductive to many 
Europeans. They are simple in their tastes and wants, dig- 
nified in their intercourse with each other, and impatient of 
restraint. While the writer was in the Indian city of Zuni, 
a few years ago, he was taken to the house of a rich man, the 
notably " rich " man of Zuni. These Zunis are not nomads, 
but the decaying remnant of what was once a powerful em- 
pire. The writer found them a quiet, peaceful, agricultural, 
pastoral race, almost untouched by European contact. They 
had one rich man. His condition was a subject of curiosity. 
In Zuni there were no abjectly poor people. All seemed to 
live in comfort. On inquiry it was found that the " rich 
mau " had a few thousand sheep, a few hundred head of cattle, 
and a herd of horses and donkeys. He had no better land 
privileges than his neighbors, except that his flocks consumed 
more grass in the neighboring mountains than those of his fellow 
citizens. It was ascertained that he made no money by usury, 
interest being unknown in Zuni. In common with his neigh- 
bors he had enough ground to cultivate. Others had consid- 
erable herds. All seemed to have as much as they needed ; 
he had more. It appeared to have come to him through 
inheritance and fortunate circumstances. He was not a trader. 
According to our estimates his riches constituted no very great 
amount of wealth. He was not a public officer. His adobe 
house was a little larger, and a little better furnished. His 
fortune had not lifted him above friendly association with 
his neighbors. He was hospitable, and, the writer learned, 
had done many acts of kindness to the less fortunate. His 
wealth seemed to be neither a reproach nor a menace. I had 
scarcely expected to find one man better off than another, and 



298 ABORIGINAL TITLE. 

I would scarcely have inquired into or noted his circumstances 
if my guide had not informed me, in bad Spanish, that this 
was " the richest man in all that country." 

In a history of the Caribbees we have a characteristic speech 
delivered by a native to a dejected European : 

" Friend, how miserable art thou, thus to expose thy per- 
son to such tedious and dangerous voyages, and suffer thyself 
to be oppressed with cares and fears. The inordinate desire 
of acquiring wealth puts thee to all this trouble and all these 
inconveniences, and yet thou art in no less disquiet for the 
goods thou hast already gotten, than for those thou desirest 
to get. Thou art in continual fear lest somebody should rob 
thee, either in thine own country or upon the seas ; or tha*t 
thy commodities should be devoured by shipwreck, or lost in 
the waters. Thus, thy hair turns grey, and thy forehead is 
wrinkled. A thousand inconveniences attend thy body, a 
thousand afflictions surround thy heart, and thou makest all 
haste to the grave. Why dost thou not contemn riches as 
we do." * 

* E. K. Davis's History of the Caribbees, Book 2, chap, xi., page 267. 



CHAPTER X. 

EEA OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT IN 
AMERICA— RIGHT OF DISCOVERY— RIGHT OF CONQUEST. 

European discoverers visit America for gold, silver and trade — A century 
of robbery, rapine and murder — Comparison between European and 
American society at date of discovery — Slavery and Las Casas — Dates of 
actual settlement in the West Indies — Dates of actual settlement in 
North America — What led to it — Settlements of the Northmen — Dis- 
covery a better title than possession — Conquest on pretense of Christian- 
izing — Native rights disregarded — French and Spanish colonies frater- 
nize with the natives — English colonies refuse to mingle — The Indian 
must " go West " — Attempts to plant white aristocracy — First specula- 
tions in sales and gifts of American lands — Popes, kings and parliaments 
granted land they had never seen — Colonial boundaries — Annexation, 
wars of conquest — Treaties — Degradation and extermination — The Plen- 
derson purchase — Baron Graffenreid — John Locke's constitution — Amer- 
ican lords and palatines — Aristocracy — Slavery — Free settlements. 

There is a common, but mistaken impression, that the 
industrial settlements in America followed immediately upon 
the European discovery by Columbus, in 1492. A more 
careful study of history will show that about one hundred and 
twenty-five years elapsed before such industrial European 
settlements actually began. Up to that time both continents 
and the West India Islands might be said to be infested with 
European adventurers. Their chief purposes were the search 
for precious metals, trade in furs or other articles with the 
natives, and the location of valuable fishing banks, from 
which food might be obtained for Europe. Indeed, for the 
latter purpose, the Basques, from the French coasts, and 
other Celtic nations, had visited the banks of Newfoundland, 
regularly, several hundred years before the time of Columbus. 

299 



300 SETTLEMENTS IN AMEEICA. 

The Scandinavians had also colonies in Greenland about the 
tenth century. Had the agricultural occupations of the 
country been the purpose of the first discoverers, they would 
naturally have selected spots in both continents but sparsely 
settled, and not occupied by strong or organized governments. 
On the contrary, we find Spanish attention chiefly directed to 
Mexico and Peru, where governments existed that could not 
be considered much inferior to the Spanish government of 
that time, except in the art of war. Just before this Spanish 
inroad on the Americas, her people had been engaged in a 
long war for the expulsion of the Saracens from the Spanish 
peninsula. It might be styled the closing part of the wars of 
the Crusades, for many soldiers, from all countries in Europe, 
had joined the Spanish army for the expulsion of the Mos- 
lems. A martial spirit and martial men had been created, 
and were ripe for American conquest when the field was 
opened. The condition of Europe at that time, moreover, 
was not what it is to-day. Spain, it is true, had then the 
finest representative government in Europe, crude though it 
was. The English Parliament was a very different body 
from the present one. The kings were in the habit of making 
exactions without parliamentary authority, and, in that age, 
serfdom was not altogether abolished, and men and women 
were still included with the transfer of estates, and estimated 
at so many shillings a piece. There was scarcely such a thing 
as a pane of glass in the houses of the working classes of 
England, and only a few churches had them. Chimneys 
were rare. Many years thereafter, Queen Elizabeth was 
charged with extravagance, for strewing the royal floors 
with fresh rushes each week. Only about a dozen vegetables 
were then cultivated in Europe, while the Europeans found 
upwards of thirty varieties cultivated in America. In some 
of our best histories, maize is still set down as one of the 
American contributions to the European table, a singular 
mistake, as in Peter Martyr and the works of several of the 



DATE OF INDUSTRIAL SETTLEMENT. 301 

Spanish writers of that time, it is distinctly stated that the 
people in America cultivated and ate " Turkey corn/' that 
cereal having been cultivated in Turkey, and thus known to 
Europeans long before the discovery. In fact, Humboldt 
ascertained that maize is nowhere found indigenous in America, 
or anywhere else, save in the valleys around the Himalaya 
mountains. 

The houses and clothing of the most highly developed na- 
tions in America, could not be considered much inferior to 
those used at that period in Europe. The objective point of 
the Spanish adventurers was the wealthy empires ; the pur- 
pose, conquest and robbery. The wild, nomadic tribes of the 
Americas could not be very successfully enslaved, but of the 
agricultural people, whole communities and towns were made 
bondsmen, and miserably perished working in the mines, 
after the rich empires, such as Mexico and Peru, had been 
robbed of their accumulations. The inspiring idea of the 
European adventurers was to get rich and return to Europe. 
The accomplished and benevolent bishop of Chiapas (Las 
Casas), whose works were suppressed by the Spanish govern- 
ment for their denunciation of the cruelties practiced on the 
inhabitants of America, so deeply sympathized with the 
wretched natives that he suggested the introduction, in the 
West India Islands, of African slavery, which was then com- 
mon on the other continents. To its introduction at that 
time the Americas are indebted for this element of their popu- 
lation, and the history connected therewith. 

Although Columbus discovered the West India Islands 
before he did the coast of the mainland, only one or two of 
them could be said to be occupied by the Spaniards for one 
hundred and fifty years. Jamaica had little more than a gar- 
rison of Spaniards in 1655, when Admiral Penn conquered 
it, whereupon it was settled by the English. In 1861 it had 
thirteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-one whites ; eighty- 
one thousand and seventy-four colored people (mixed) and 
26 



302 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

three hundred and forty-six thousand three hundred and 
seventy- four blacks. In 1871, five hundred and six thousand 
one hundred and fifty-four whites ; thirteen thousand one 
hundred and one mixed, and three hundred and ninety-two 
thousand seven hundred and seven blacks. It is proper to 
state that in 1850 about fifty thousand of the population per- 
ished of cholera.* The dates of actual settlements in the 
West Indies were as follows : the Dutch settled Tobago in 
1632, and the Virgin Islands in 1648. The English settled 
Barbadoes in 1624; St. Christopher, in 1625; the Bahamas, 
in 1629 ; Antigua, Montserrat, Barbuda and Redonda, in 
1632, and Auguilla, in 1640. f The French settled Domi- 
nica in 1610; Martinique, Guadeloupe, Desirada, Marie Gal- 
ante, St. Bartholomew, Tortugas and Hermano, in 1635; 
Grenada in 1650; and St. Vincent, in 1719. The Danes 
settled St. Thomas in 1671, and St, John in 1717, while it 
was 1643 before the Spaniards settled St. Martin, St. Eusta- 
tius, Sabar and Curacoa. They had, shortly after the dis- 
covery, obtained a foothold in Cuba and San Domingo. 

Let us examine the European settlements in North America. 
In 1564, the French Huguenots, on account of their persecu- 
tion in France, planted a colony in Florida, near the spot on 
which St. Augustine now stands. The year after, a Spanish 
governor, Menendez, landed, took the Huguenot fort, and 
hanged the prisoners as heretics. A few months later, the 
Spaniards left at the place were hung by a French officer 
who came to avenge his countrymen. As Spain claimed the 
North American continent, she established a fort at St. Augus- 
tine, in 1565, and there has been a continuous European 
settlement ever since, which, for a long period, however, did 
not extend to the adjacent country. J In 1584 Queen Eliza- 
beth granted two patents to Adrian Gilbert and Sir Walter 

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, page 441. 

f Lippincott's Gazetteer, page 2386. J Ibid., page 775. 



LETTERS PATENT TO AMERICAN SOIL. 303 

Raleigh, to make settlement in North America. No perma- 
nent settlements were effected at that time. In 1607, James- 
town, in Virginia, was settled by the English, but burned by 
the natives the ensuing year.* It was permanently settled, in 
1610, by Governor De La War. At that time all that por- 
tion of North America north of Florida was styled Virginia, 
in honor of Queen Elizabeth, who had granted the original 
charter. In 1609, Hendrick Hudson, acting under the 
Dutch, sailed up the Hudson to the place where Albany now 
stands, and, consequently, the Dutch claimed all the country 
from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen.f Conception Bay, New- 
foundland was settled in 1610 by forty planters under a patent 
from King James. J In 1608, Champlain, a Frenchman, 
settled at Quebec, and remained undisturbed until 1613, when 
the English Virginia colony sent a force to dislodge him. In 
1606 James I. divided Virginia by letters patent. The south- 
ern part included all lands between the 34th and 41st degrees 
of north latitude. The northern, called the second colony, 
also included part of the first, as it ran from the 38th to the 
45th. Each of these colonies was to be governed by thirteen 
men, and, as the territories lapped over each other, to prevent 
disputes, these separate colonists were forbidden to settle 
within a hundred miles of each other. § 

The Northmen or Scandinavians, as already stated, made 
settlements in Greenland, in 982. || In 1534 the French had 
sailed up the St. Lawrence river, and went through the for- 
mula of taking possession of the country as " New France." 
Sebastian Cabot, who had sailed along the North American 
continent from Davis Straits to a not definite point south, in 
1497, like the rest of the exploring navigators, went through 
the form of taking possession of the country for the English 

* Holmes' American Annals, page 154. f Ibid., page 167. 

t Ibid., page 172. 

g Morse's Universal Gazetteer, vol. i., page 115. || Ibid., page 73. 



304 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

crown.* In 1576, Sir Francis Drake, while cruising for 
Spanish galleons, discovered and took possession of California 
for the British, but no settlements were made. The Dutch, 
claiming, under the discovery of Hendrick Hudson, settled 
Manhattan, or New Amsterdam, (now New York) in 1614. 
In 1614 Captain Smith sailed along the coast of "North Vir- 
ginia/' and made a map of it, after which it was called " New 
England/' f In 1620 a portion of the Puritan congregation 
of Mr. Robinson, with elder Brewster and John Carver, set- 
tled at Plymouth. J The settlement of New Hampshire dates 
from 1623. In 1627, a colony of Swedes and Finns landed 
at Cape Henlopen, and " purchased from the Indians " the 
land from that point to the Delaware Falls, They, how- 
ever, called the Delaware river "New Swecleland Stream." 
Upon it they built several forts and made settlements. § In 
1628 Sir Henry Boswell bought from the New England 
Council the land around Massachusetts Bay, and founded the 
colony. || Maryland was settled by Lord Baltimore, in 1633. 
In 1630 Connecticut was granted to Lords Say and Brooke, 
but no English settlement was made there until 1 635. In 
the same year Roger Williams and' his brethren were driven 
from Massachusetts and settled in Rhode Island. The Dutch 
made settlements in New Jersey, in 1614, and, as has been 
already stated, the Swedes and Finns made settlements in 
what is now part of New Jersey, in 1627. The English 
monarch granted New Jersey to the Duke of York who sold 
it to Lord Berkeley in 1664. In the same year the English 
captured Manhattan, or New York, from the Dutch. South 
Carolina was settled by the English in 1669. William Penn 
made his celebrated settlement of Pennsylvania in 1682, and 
made a treaty with the Indians for the relinquishment of a 

* Holmes' American Annals, page 17. 

f Ibid., page 183. J Ibid., page 199. 

\ Morse's Universal Gazetteer, vol. i., page 119. 

|| Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, page 32. 



EMIGEATION FOLLOWS PERSECUTION. 305 

small portion of the territory sold to him by the British 
crown. Louisiana was settled by the French in the same 
year. Georgia was settled by General Oglethorpe and colony 
in 1717. The tract of land now known as Vermont was 
claimed by both the colonies of JSTew York and New Hamp- 
shire. When hostilities broke out between Great Britain and 
the colonies, the inhabitants assembled and formed a " Con- 
stitution of Government." It has ever since continued to 
exercise its powers. The first settlement at Bennington was 
in 1776. The state was not admitted to the Union under 
this constitution until 1791. 

I am thus particular about the dates because they show that 
actual European, industrial settlements were not seriously 
thought of for a long time after the discovery by Columbus. 
They also show that during the seventeenth century there 
were active influences at work in Europe driving out a differ- 
ent class of people from those who first came to America for 
gold or conquest. These causes had much to do with the 
character of the settlements. A political and religious revo- 
lution was going on, and many of the independent thinkers 
in European countries were glad to seek a new home where 
they could escape persecution. At that time the English 
feudal system of land tenure was being modified, and in the 
reign of Charles was nominally abolished, but the lands of 
Britain had been left in the hands of their aristocratic owners. 
The colonists were surrounded by many peculiar circumstances 
which did not leave them at liberty to devise a perfect system 
of land tenure, even if they had been prepared for it. Land, 
moreover, was abundant and cheap ; it was not anticipated 
that there ever would be a scarcity of it. 

Following the discovery of Columbus, many of the people 
of Europe may be said to have become drunk with adventure. 
Discovery was considered a better title than possession. Spir- 
itual and temporal potentates were alike infected with the 
idea of giving away or selling the lands of the Americas they 



306 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

had never seen. Whole principalities were generously granted 
by people who never owned them, and impecunious moDarchs 
paid their debts by laying mortgages on lands to which they 
never, by purchase or even conquest, had the color of title. 

Such was the age of " The right of discovery." The mode 
of establishing title, under the right of discovery, was for an 
adventurous navigator to go on shore, in a region hitherto 
unknown to Europeans, and hoist a flag and take possession 
in the name of his sovereign, whoever he might happen to be. 
In the celebrated map of Juan de la Cosa, the companion and 
chart-maker of Columbus, made in Spain, in 1500, we find 
the Brazils marked by the Portuguese flag ; the larger portion 
of the islands and continents by the Spanish flag, and the 
region above and below the mouth of the St. Lawrence is 
adorned with the British flag. It is a circumstance worthy 
of note, moreover, that the Cosa map of 1500 gives nearly the 
whole North American coast line, including a not very correct 
peninsula of Florida, and the mouths of the Mississippi river. 
This was twenty years before our historical version of the 
discovery of Florida by Ponce de Leon, and is a curious 
instance of the manner in which romance is injected into his- 
tory. To reconcile it, Mr. Stevens, the Ethnological writer, 
attempts, in an introduction to a report on the Tehuantepec 
railway, to show that Juan de la Cosa meant the mouths of 
the river he represented on his map for the Ganges. How 
such a writer could have made such a mistake is inexplicable, 
as it was notorious that Columbus and Cosa, his map-maker, 
on his second voyage, took an observation at an eclipse at St. 
Domingo, and fixed the exact number of degrees between that 
point and Seville. The old Ptolemy maps plainly showed 
the location of China (Cathay) and, of course, both the men 
knew perfectly well to a degree the immense stretch of the 
earth's surface that lay between these points. In fact, Columbus, 
during that second voyage, wrote a letter to Queen Isabella, 
in which he said: "This country, your majesty, is net, as 



TITLE BY DISCOVERY. 307 

many people suppose, an island, but a continent, or rather, two 
continents connected by a narrow neck of land, and beyond 
that a great sea much larger than that we have traversed in 
coming from your majesty's dominions." Of course, Colum- 
bus had not sailed over that sea. From personal knowledge 
he knew little of either continent, but the natives of the West 
Indies, before he reached them, made continual voyages from 
continent to continent, across the Caribbean Sea, and the navi- 
gators doubtless received much of their knowledge of the 
subject from them. 

Some time afterward Balboa " discovered " the South Sea 
across the isthmus and frantically rushed into and " took pos- 
session " of it in the name of the sovereigns of Spain. In 
fact, for a long period discoverers were sailing to and fro, 
hoisting flags and taking possession of countries. Many of 
them took possession of the same regions, and when a man, 
founding his right on somebody's discovery, took possession of 
a locality, there was no specific limit to the extent of his 
possessions. I am thus particular about the " right of dis- 
covery " as this rather absurd fiction has entered as an element 
into American titles. Courts have gravely discussed it, and 
persons in authority pondered over the rights thus given to 
large portions of the surface of the earth. A right which 
seemed to carry the power to expel the native inhabitants, to 
give kings the authority to make a chattel of an almost un- 
known region, speculators the claim to traffic in it, and to 
deny others the privilege of cultivating it without the consent 
of the discoverer, his heirs and assigns. 

The " right of discovery," by its uncertainties, the natural 
doubt about its record, the mystery as to how much was dis- 
covered, or how far the hoisted flag threw its shadow, gave 
rise to another and kindred right, the " right of conquest." 
The right of discovery may be styled the pickpocket's right, 
and the right of conquest the highwayman's right. The pick- 
pocket discovers that a man has a pocketbook in his coat, and 



308 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

by adroit manipulation gets possession of it without alarming 
or notifying the owner. His possession comes from his right 
of discovery. On the other hand, the highwayman meets 
his victim, and by force of arms or greater strength, knocks 
him down and takes what he has. His title to what he thus 
gets is the " right of conquest." The right of conquest was 
not a new invention of European adventurers in America. It 
had flourished in Western Europe for many hundred years. 
Lords and barons built castles on almost inaccessible crags, 
and sallied forth with their retainers, and plundered their 
neighbors.* The great man of that period was he who could 
cut a throat if occasion offered, drive in a herd of cattle, or 
sack a house without compunction. Of course, when persons 
of this character found a new opening in America, it was to 
be expected that they would take advantage of their opportu- 
nities. The American field, moreover, had several advan- 
tages. The natives had not yet discovered gunpowder, and 
excursions among them were a good deal safer. The chance 
of reprisals was not so great. In addition to this, Peru and 
Mexico had better organized governments at that time than 
some portions of Europe were blessed with, and, as well organ- 
ized banditti had not flourished on the weakness or connivance 
of the state, the field was a good deal richer. Human 
cupidity has written some terrible pages of history, but none 
which appear more mercilessly cruel, or utterly unwarranted, 
than the plunder and overthrow of Peru and Mexico. Nor 
had the conquerors the pretended apology that they carried 
superior government and civilization. It is stated that there 
have been upwards of two hundred and sixty revolutions in 
Mexico since 1821,f not to mention the interminable political 
confusion before that time. Indeed, it may be safely stated 
that since the murder of Montezuma, for it was not an execu- 

* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., page 506. 
f Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, page 520. 



BUCCANEERS. 309 

tion, unhappy Mexico has never been so well policed or 
governed. The amount of gold and silver shipped to Europe 
was so great that the statistics about it seem incredible. It 
was enough to upset and unsettle values in the Old World, 
and laid the foundation for the comparative decay of Spain, 
by diverting her people from those staid, industrious habits 
that alone can give prosperity to a nation. Spain was, never- 
theless, the envy of Europe. Piratical expeditions were fitted 
out to cruise on the Spanish main and capture the galleons 
loaded with bullion. These were the grand old buccaneer- 
ing days, the term boucanier being given because these free- 
booters chiefly lived on the dry meat of the buffalo, at that 
time plentifully found on the North American coast. There 
was no particular discredit attached to the business, one 
prominent English operator having been knighted for his 
prowess. 

I have endeavored to point out the distinction between the 
first hundred and twenty-five years of adventure and plunder, 
and the era of industrial settlements of a better class, begin- 
ning with the early portion of the seventeenth century. The 
era of discovery and robbery had to a considerable extent 
expended its energies. That period, moreover, had be- 
queathed some bad elements and precedents as to the rights 
of property in the New World, especially in land. The 
theory that the state had the right to determine on what 
terms the land within its geographical limits should be occu- 
pied was upset. Much of the land was disposed of, or pre- 
tended to be disposed of, before any American government 
was established. Much of it was handed and bandied about 
after a fashion that would not, even then, have been tolerated 
in Europe, semi-barbarous though it was. It is true, 
Indian governments of all kinds and grades occupied the 
country, and their people had lived here from remote periods, 
but the whole idea of the European settlements was hostile to 
their rights. The claims of Spain, or France, or England 



310 SETTLEMENTS IN AMEKICA. 

by discovery, were paramount, and the Indian title was some- 
thing that was to be got rid of as soon as this could be safely 
or conveniently done. Had it been attempted in any high- 
handed way, by general conquest, at any time during the first 
fifty years of settlement, the result, in all probability, 
would have been the expulsion of the settlers. At the date 
of the European discovery, the region lying north and east of 
the Mexican provinces, was thinly populated. The evidences 
of a more dense population, and a higher stage of civilization, 
still confront us, but at that period had mainly passed away. 
A few great nomadic peoples broken into tribes and bands, 
traversed the west, the north and the east. The country was 
rich in game, nuts and fruit. Many of the inhabitants culti- 
vated a little maize, and were in one place this year and in 
another the next. Neither their religion nor their political 
ideas gave their governments a centralizing force. They were 
attached to their free, independent modes of life. Their 
councils were advisory rather than dictatorial. A chief had 
no power save by the consent of those he ruled. There was 
no means of enforcing his authority, and it was liable to ter- 
minate at any moment. Wandering as they did, conflicts 
between the different tribes and bands were frequent. Bloody 
tribal feuds existed. Confederacies in a few cases had been 
created, but these were chiefly between the people of the same 
blood, and exercised no general authority capable of organ- 
izing resistance. Clustered around the Mobilian basin were 
the broken fragments of a hundred different races and tribes, 
many of whom were in stages of decline. A few of these 
peoples cultivated orchards and fruit, and domesticated many 
animals and fowls. They had no great cities, but agricultu- 
ral towns and villages. Long after the date of the European 
discovery the sacred fire still burned on their great mounds or 
high places. 

The languages of the nomadic tribes of the north and west 
were crude, and indicated little progress in society or thought ; 



AGRICULTURISTS FORCED TO BE NOMADS. 311 

they rarely generalized, had no such words as "tree" or "cat- 
tle," but every beast and every tree had its name. Not so 
with many tribes or fragments of nations found clustered 
near the lower part of the great river. Nearly every form of 
grammatical construction can be found among them. The 
same law of emigration which obtained in the old continents 
seemed to have governed here. Nation after nation, and 
tribe after tribe must have floated down with the current, silt 
and drift, on the great river, and left their heterogeneous and 
broken fragments in the delta, or in the low wet lands of 
Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Tribes and nations not 
so far advanced, and not so mixed or fragmentary, but still 
subsisting chiefly from agriculture and fishing, stretched up, 
far northward on the American coasts. Besides the great 
nomadic nations heretofore referred to, many tribes and 
nations once located in certain portions of the country, on 
being driven from their homes, became, to great extent, 
nomads and wanderers, nor could they very well help it. On 
their arrival, the whites were continually pressing and driving 
them back, and they were thrown in contact with the interior 
tribes, who, in turn, regarded them as intruders. Having, in 
many cases, been enemies formerly, fresh feuds were easily 
engendered by this conflict of interests. While there are a 
few instances where the contact with the whites beuefited or 
improved their condition, upon the whole, the effect on the 
native American tribes, has been in every way degrading and 
disastrous. The date of the European settlements was to 
them the commencement of ruin. These people, to a large 
extent, ceased to be agriculturists because they had no security 
for the crops they might plant, nor could they hope to remain 
in any location. Permanent improvements, and any advance 
in their condition was always looked on by the whites with 
jealousy, as increasing the difficulties of getting rid of them. 

After the era of plunder and gold mining had partially 
subsided, the Spaniards commenced permanent industrial set- 



312 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

tlements. They were not driven out by religious persecution, 
for Spain was always Catholic, but, in common with other 
nations in Europe, her people suffered from the social and 
political changes that were going on, and to many emigration 
was a relief. In some respects their colonial settlements dif- 
fered from the French, but they, too, intermarried with the 
natives, and there was an absorption and blending of some of 
the peculiarities of each. In some portions of Spanish Amer- 
ica, certain parties still boast of pure Castillian blood. This, 
however, is rare. A few of the native Indian nations and 
villages, on the other hand, do not intermix with the Span- 
iards, but there is no wide gulf fixed as to their modes of life. 
In driving down the Rio Grande, for instance, the coachman 
will tell you that this "is an Indian town," and that 
"a Spanish town," but there seems to be but little difference 
between them in dwellings, dress or habits. The Spaniards 
have chiefly occupied countries where agriculture could only 
be carried on by irrigation, and they adopted the modes and 
regulations of the aboriginal inhabitants. The ancient build- 
ing material of the country was largely adobe or adobe and 
stone, and the Spaniards build almost similar houses. The 
more wealthy Spaniards merely erected larger houses, and 
they are a little better finished and furnished, but of the same 
generic character. What is true of both the French and 
Spanish settlements, is that in occupying the country, the 
expulsion of the Indian does not appear to have been neces- 
sary, or to have been contemplated. In both cases the French 
and Spanish governments endeavored to foster an aristocracy. 
Great grants of land were given to prominent Spaniards for 
military service or money. The Spanish settlements in 
America began in a conception of aristocracy and although 
without titular distinction (beyond mere military titles) have 
remained essentially aristocratic. In this condition these 
Spanish colonies are found to-day. 

The British colonial system was different. Their settlers 



NATIONAL BARGAINS BY TREATY. 313 

did not intermarry with, or mix in a friendly or homogeneous 
population with the natives. In the Byrd manuscript, that 
philosophical and facetious old Virginia colonist deprecated 
the circumstance, which is specially noted by him. He thinks 
it unfair that the English in taking their land should not have 
taken their daughters with it.* There are a few exceptional 
cases. In Virginia, the case of Pocahontas. The Scotch and 
Irish settlers of Georgia who went there with Oglethorpe, also, 
to a considerable extent, became mixed with the Southern 
tribes. The McGilvarys and Mclntoshs of the Creek nation, 
and the Eosses, McDonalds, MaNairs and Adairs of the 
Cherokees, are notable instances, and have had marked effect 
on the progress of these tribes. In these cases it is to be ob- 
served that such Europeans were absorbed by those two 
nations, and became part of their people, and active partici- 
pants in their policy. There was, with the American and 
Indian tribes in general, no mingling of the two races, or any 
system encouraged or tolerated for a conjunction of interests 
or mutual absorption on fair terms. " The Indian must go " 
was the prevalent policy, and it has written a record stained 
by bloodshed and bad faith. 

One of the most important consequences of the " right of 
discovery/' was the system of treaties with the Indian nations 
and tribes. The " crown " of each nation having colonies 
claimed the right of title by discovery, and, from the crown, the 
colonies claimed powers and privileges under the same head. 
All parties were perfectly well aware, however, that there was 
an occupancy right that covered the country. At first many 
of the colonists endeavored to purchase from the natives the 
right of occupying certain locations, or propitiated the tribes 
with presents, so that they would permit the settlements. As 
has been shown, none of the Indian tribes understood, or for 
a moment approved of, or adopted the theory that the land 



* Byrd's Manuscript, History of the Dividing Line, page 5. 
27 



314 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

was an individual chattel, or that the purchasers could have 
perpetual, exclusive use. They were, however, very jealous 
and careful about the boundaries of the lands belonging to 
their own people. In defense of their boundaries they did 
not hesitate to go to war, and they tenaciously clung to their 
possessions in all the contests about frontage, in council and 
negotiation. The title, however, was the title of the nation, 
and could only be disposed of by the nation. William Penn 
had purchased a tract of land from the British Crown, and, 
conscientiously believing that this really gave him no title to 
the Indian property without their consent, he, by treaty, pur- 
chased land where Philadelphia now stands, from the Indians. 
They, of course, merely understood that for these presents 
they gave the right of settlement at that place to Mr. Penn 
and his people. They certainly did not contemplate a fresh 
irruption of settlers, and continued arrivals of innumerable 
colonists that should over-run not only the country they 
occupied, but regions now constituting Pennsylvania which 
were claimed by other tribes. In the same way as stated, the 
settlement of Swedes and Finns on the Delaware, bought 
from the Indians all the land from Cape Henlopen to the Falls 
of the Delaware. Unless it was under the Dutch right of 
discovery of New York, they had no fiction of a right of 
discovery to fall back on, and, indeed, they had to make their 
peace with the British proprietors as best they could. 

It very soon became apparent to the rulers in Europe, who 
were interested in real estate in America, that it would never 
do to let everybody make bargains or treaties with the Indians, 
or the right of discovery and even the colonial patents would 
soon amount to nothing or get mixed up with these purchases 
by individuals and lead to inextricable confusion. Treaties 
were then made by the European governments with the gov- 
ernments of the Indian nations for cessions of land from time 
to time as the colonies progressed. Under the most stringent 
regulations individuals were prohibited from making purchases 



COLONIAL PATENTS TO LAND. 315 

or bargains with the Indians, and even the colonists were for- 
bidden from encroaching on the Indian lands, or making pur- 
chases or treaties with them except under royal authority. 
The colonial governors, acting under specific authority, issued 
patents to tracts purchased or granted in some cases. Besides 
the companies holding the colonial charters, many other com- 
panies obtained and purchased considerable tracts, chiefly for 
speculation. Many prominent colonists thus obtained tracts, 
some through the colonial governors, and some directly from 
the British privy council. A royal proclamation was issued 
in 1763 forbidding the territorial governors from granting 
patents to lands beyond the head waters of rivers flowing into 
the Atlantic. Title predicated on the royal right of discovery 
and the right of conquest has been treated with the utmost 
gravity when questions growing out of it have been under 
consideration by the supreme court of the United States. It 
is to be regretted, and a few hundred years hence it will 
probably be regretted more, that fictions about such rights 
should have figured so prominently, and that in treating these 
questions the court had not chiefly considered the principles 
and spirit upon which the government and constitution had 
been founded. Chief Justice Marshall, the most eminent of 
our jurists, indeed held that the right of discovery only gave 
an exclusive right to purchase from the Indians, as against all 
other nations, and in this he was doubtless sustained by the 
laws and practice of all the governments. The power to ex- 
tinguish the right of discovery by the right of conquest, as in 
the case of the British over the French, and the Dutch does 
not seem to be called in question by anybody. The colonies 
by the war of independence succeeded to all the rights the 
British had, and, by the purchase of Louisiana, to all the 
rights of the French. 

In her treaties with the Indians the United States has, be- 
sides paying a trifle for the land she obtained, been in the 
habit of sacredly guaranteeing the Indians the unmolested 



316 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 

possession of the remainder. This the French and English 
had done before them, and in all these cases the rights thus 
guaranteed were observed until these governments wanted 
some more land. Adequate payment to the tribes for the land 
relinquished was never made. The treaties were often made 
by the Indians under a species of duress, probably at the close 
of an Indian war, or a war in which the Indians participated, 
or under circumstances when some kind of a settlement had to 
be accepted. Many men claiming to be statesmen have often 
participated in these purchases of Indian lands for a trifle of 
what they were worth. A pernicious idea that the lands of 
the country were something that kings and republics, states 
and individuals, could speculate in and make gain of, infected 
the general mind. Long after the adoption of the federal 
constitution political parties were rent in twain on the subject 
of selling the public lands and distributing the proceeds among 
the states. The curse of the first discoverers and conquerors 
seemed to rest on the soil. The adventurers came, and after 
they had stolen all the gold and silver they could lay their 
hands on, attempted to steal the continent and make it a foot- 
ball for speculators. It was a chattel to pay debts with, and 
barter and give away by those who would not deign even to 
set foot upon it. Had their influence perished with them it 
would not have been so much to be regretted, but it made a 
chattel of land after a fashion the world had not yet seen, and 
it poisoned and blinded men's minds on this question of great 
public policy. 

Some singular precedents were created by the colonists. 
North Carolina, by an act of her colonial legislature, extended 
her boundaries to the Mississippi river. Why she did not 
extend them to the Pacific ocean is incomprehensible. Not 
the least wonderful thing is that she succeeded in getting her 
claim to this property considered, and obtained payment for 
lands in a large portion of Tennessee. A Virginian named 
Henderson visited what is now Kentucky and purchased a 



THE HENDERSON PURCHASE. 317 

tract from the Cherokee Indians. The transaction appears 
from the first to have been open to objections. Many years 
after, when the treaty of Hopewell was made, the Cherokees 
claimed a considerable portion of the lands of Kentucky, when 
the commissioners produced the deed or paper conveying all 
of that region to Mr. Henderson. Tassell, one of the dele- 
gates, borrowed some paper from the commissioner and made 
a map showing the rivers and their boundaries, a fac-simile 
of which is in the American State Papers, and said that the 
signature of Oconestoto to the deed was a forgery. Hender- 
son, he said, had only asked for a little land on Kentucky 
river to feed his horses on. Tassell described it by a small 
round circle on the map. The commissioner informed him 
that all the parties to the deed were dead, and as the titles of a 
great many settlers were involved, it must stand. Tassell 
then replied, they "would let Kentucky go," but he "was 
sorry Henderson was dead ; he would like to have told him 
he was a liar." * 

When Henderson first made his purchase, the matter was 
brought to the attention of the Virginia colonial legislature, 
and as Henderson was a Virginian that body patriotically 
claimed the country for Virginia. They considerately allowed 
him about a third of it for himself, taking the ground that 
such a portion was worth a great deal more than he gave for 
the whole, and after determining that the sale was not perfectly 
good so far as Mr. Henderson was concerned, resolved that it 
was conclusively good so far as any or all Indians were con- 
cerned, and then proceeded to dispose of the remainder. This 
was the foundation for no inconsiderable number of land 
titles. 

Virginia also claimed property interests in the northwest 
territory in Ohio and Illinois. Connecticut likewise had a 
claim to land in Ohio, partly growing out of their right to 

* American State Papers, vol. i., Indian Affairs, page 42. 



318 SETTLEMENTS IN AMEKICA. 

extend their boundaries to the " South Sea," and partly owing 
to settlement under Manasseh Cutler, and both states in 1802 
ceded their jurisdiction over their reserves to the United States. 
Connecticut disposed of the lands styled the Western Reserve 
in Ohio, by sales. 

In establishing the British colonies in North America they 
were marked by the circumstances of the settlers and the spirit 
that animated the settlement. The founders of the. colonies 
north of Maryland were people driven from Europe by perse- 
cution. They were protestants against long established ideas, 
and their protestant spirit crops out in the colonies they 
founded. Aristocracy among them soon perished. The 
people were and are sturdy, laborious and economical. In 
many of the Southern states aristocracy was carefully planted 
and encouraged. The colony of Carolina was planned in 
Great Britain. There were to be counts for the counties and 
palatines and barons. John Locke lent the scheme the aid 
of his genius, and wTote the constitution of government that 
was designed to be adopted. In North Carolina, when the 
Carolinas were divided, a similar idea was fostered. One of 
the founders was a Baron Graffenreid, who actually attempted 
to establish his barony, and came very near being burned at 
the stake by the exasperated natives.* Virginia was blessed 
by her shoots of aristocracy and her "first families" still 
cling to the relics of a decayed greatness. Lord Baltimore 
remains the patron saint of the tournaments of Maryland. 
Large landed possessions were acquired, and are still retained in 
these sections. As the average emigrating European, even 
then, was averse to peonage, and able to set up for himself, 
the aristocracy would have pined for a class to lord over, had 
it not been for African slavery. At first common, to some 
extent, in all the colonies, it soon languished in the great 

* Baron Graffenreid's Letter in Williamson's Tuscarora War, vol. i., 
page 285. 



COLONIAL LAND SPECULATION. 319 

central and eastern portions and passed away. In the South 
the system grew to a great aristocratic oligarchy. The poor 
whites who could not own slaves gradually sank in the scale, 
for no labor can be respectable where slave labor exists. 
Georgia, in the beginning, was not blessed or cursed with 
slavery. The conscientious Oglethorpe resolutely opposed it. 
His followers coveted the privileges of the adjoining colonies, 
and kept up the agitation until they carried their point, and 
the founder of the colony shook the dust from his feet 
against them. 

The colonial era really laid the foundations of what 
there is of an American land system. It began with royal 
claims based on discovery, and ended in conquest and specula- 
tion. Through all the checkered years from 1610 to 1776, 
the foundations of European settlements in America were 
planted, and grew into power. The essential feature of the 
land polity seemed to be that in this New World each man 
should get as much land as he could, and if he did not sell it to 
some successor, his family should have the exclusive right to 
use it forever. Escaping from the aristocracy and despotism 
of Europe, each man hoped he could found an aristocratic 
family of his own. Tenure was not based on a recognition of 
human rights, but on privilege. The richer and more aristo- 
cratic colonists desired great estates and the spread of an 
aristocratic landed system. Such institutions met the favor 
and received the patronage of the home governments. Poor 
settlers and colonists had little power and were anxious to 
secure all the land they could. 

It must, indeed, be conceded that nothing save a strong 
liberty-loving spirit among the people prevented a worse 
system than we inherited. The assertion of human rights was 
broad enough in the Declaration of Independence to consti- 
tute the principles of a free government. It is to be regretted 
that a permanent, equitable land tenure was not established. 



CHAPTER XL 

HISTORY OF THE LAND POLITY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Land tenure shaped in colonial days — Conflicting colonial claims — 
Continental Congress — Plea to pay expenses of Revolutionary War from 
public lands — First land bounty for soldiers — Proposed northwest colony 
■ — Washington's landed estates — The Walpole Land Company — The Ohio 
Company — The Quebec bill — Ordinance for the northwest territory — 
Madison's comments — First modes of land sale — French commons — John 
Adams — Property in soil the foundation of power — Land sold from 1796 
to 1885 — Proceeds in money — Less than a year's customs and revenue — 
The surplus funds — The years of great land speculation — Borrowing 
public money to buy public lands — Distribution of the proceeds — Gradu- 
ation bill — Grants of lands to states — To schools and colleges — To canals 
■ — To corporations — Pre-emption law — Homestead law — Great and small 
land speculators — Squatters — Residue of public lands — Frauds under a 
bad system — Texas and her lands — Mexican grants — Letter from the 
commissioner — Aggregate homesteads filed and taken — Timber culture 
grants — Area disposed for bounty land warrants — Number of farms in 
the United States — Number of landholders — Of renters — Of farm labor- 
ers — Gradual transfer of land from settler to land speculator. 

In founding a republic on the admitted equality of the 
human race, and on the inalienable right of all its citizens to 
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness/' there is nothing 
in the mode of disposing of the public domain or the adjust- 
ment of tenures in these United States that is worthy of being 
called a land policy. As we have seen, the greatest of ancient 
nations have been overthrown by the evils following land 
monopoly. Where equal tenure of the soil passed into privi- 
lege, a tax on production was thus levied to sustain an aristo- 
cratic non-productive class. In Western Europe feudal land- 
holders had entered into a struggle with chattel holders, both 
being assertions of individual right to the soil. These differ- 
320 



STATES AS LAND CLAIMANTS. 321 

ent opinions about tenure were transplanted to the soil of a 
new continent where the right of discovery and the right of 
conquest had already called in question equal human right. 
Out of these conflicting materials American tenure was shaped. 

During colonial times the land was not treated as something 
to which all the men who might live on it should have an 
equal right. Land was sometimes acquired for use, but more 
frequently for speculation. Ignorant ev£n of the geography of 
the country they disposed of, the original colonial charters were 
formed in language, much of which now appears ridiculous, 
and led to conflicts in regard to title. Many of the grants cov- 
ered the same ground and nearly all of them terminated at the 
" South Sea/' or Pacific Ocean. When the colonies succeeded in 
achieving their independence the territorial question was a very 
disturbing one. Virginia claimed not only Kentucky, but a 
large tract north and west of the Ohio. New York claimed a 
great deal of the same country by virtue of cessions from the Iro- 
quois, or six nations. These people rambled over a considerable 
portion of the United States, and a cession of their territory and 
jurisdiction was rather indefinite. Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut were pertinacious in asserting their rights to some of 
the territory that lay between them and the " South Sea." A 
conflict also existed between New York and Pennsylvania in 
regard to their Western territories. 

The creation of a northwestern colony had long been a dis- 
turbing element between influential parties in the colonies and 
the mother country. A company called the "Ohio Company" 
had been formed in 1748 by Thomas Lee, Lawrence Washing- 
ton, Augustine Washington and others, for the colonization 
of the western country. They obtained from the crown a 
grant of five hundred thousand acres in the region of the 
Ohio, and the French and Indian War was precipitated by 
their attempting to open a road to these western valleys. A 
royal proclamation was issued in 1763, prohibiting colonial 
governors from granting patents for land beyond the sources 



322 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

of any of the rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean. This 
proclamation was ostensibly to pacify the Indians by reserving 
for their use the lands west of the Alleghenies, but behind it 
lurked another policy, — that of organizing colonies only on the 
seaboard that could be retained in the interests, commercially 
and otherwise, of the mother country. The governor of Vir- 
ginia had no jurisdiction outside of his own province, but he 
was authorized to gra*nt from " the king's domain " two hun- 
dred thousand acres to officers and soldiers who had served in 
the French and Indian War, provided the claimants applied 
to him personally for land warrants. These grants were, for 
every field officer, five thousand acres; for every captain, three 
thousand ; to every subaltern or staff officer, two hundred, and 
for every private, fifty acres. This was one of the earliest 
military land grants in this country. These grants could be 
made in " Florida," Canada or elsewhere in ungranted crown 
lands. George Washington, who was entitled to five thousand 
acres in his own right, and who in conjunction with others 
bought up the claims of various parties, ultimately received at 
least thirty-two thousand acres of this tract. Governor Dun- 
more had, in the first place, issued patent to Washington for 
upward of twenty thousand acres on the Kanawha and Ohio 
rivers. In the schedule of property appended to Washington's 
will, the value of the parcels owned by him was noted in 1799, 
in his own hand. According to this memoranda he had in Vir- 
ginia, 27,486 acres, thus valued at $124,880 ; on the Ohio, 
9,744 acres, valued by him at $97,440 ; on the Great Ka- 
nawha, 23,341 acres, estimated at $200,000. In addition 
there are smaller tracts in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New 
York, in the Northwest Territory and in Kentucky. In all, 
70,975 acres, which he deemed at that time to be worth 
$464,807. He had, also, lots in Washington, Alexandria and 
Winchester. I refer to this statement as indicating the rela- 
tions to real estate of a Virginia gentleman of that period. 
It had been the policy of Britain in several of the colonies, 



SETTLEMENT OF THE BACK LANDS. 323 

notably Virginia and the Carolinas, to encourage the formation 
of large landed proprietorships and thus create territorial 
nobility, or country gentlemen. This mode of disposing of 
land had a good deal to do with what followed. It is all 
the more to Washington's credit that, although he owned 
slaves and was by his surroundings necessarily connected with 
large landholding interests, he cordially joined in forming a 
republic predicated on the doctrine of the equal rights of men. 
The lands of the colonies were being absorbed, and even the 
" back lands," called " crown lands," were in various ways 
getting into market. A very instructive advertisement over 
the signature of George Washington is in part copied from 
the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser of August 
20th, 1773: 

" Mount Vernon, in Virginia, July 15, 1773. 
" The subscriber having obtained patents for upwards of twenty thousand 
acres of land on the Ohio and Great Kanawha (ten thousand of which are 
situated on the banks of the first-mentioned river, between the mouths of 
the two Kanawhas, and the remainder on the Great Kanawha, or New 
River, from the mouth, or near it, upward in one continued survey) pro- 
poses to divide the same into any sized tenements that may be desired, and 
lease them upon moderate terms, allowing a reasonable number of years 
rent free, provided within the space of two years from next October, 
three acres for every fifty contained in each lot, and proportionately as 
above, shall be enclosed and laid down in good grass for meadows, and, 
moreover, that at least fifty fruit trees for every like quantity of land shall 
be planted on the premises. * * * * To which may be added, that as 
patents have now actually passed the seals for the several tracts here 
offered to be leased, settlers on them may cultivate and enjoy the lands in 
peace and safety notwithstanding the unsettled counsels respecting a new 
colony on the Ohio ; and, as no right-money is to be paid for the lands, and 
quit rent of two shillings sterling a hundred, demandable some years hence, 
only, it is highly presumable that they will always be held on a more de- 
sirable footing than when both these are laid on with a heavy hand." 

The advertisement enumerates that the " portage" from the 
" Powtowmack " by Cheat river and the other branches of 
the Monongahela, will be reduced to the compass of a few 



324 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

miles. The quality of the lands are extolled, and it is signed 
" George Washington." 

In 1766 Benjamin Franklin and others organized a com- 
pany called the " Vandalia," afterward the " Walpole Com- 
pany." The company was composed of thirty-two Americans 
and two gentlemen of London ; one of these was Thomas 
Walpole, a prominent London banker. The petition of the 
company to the British privy council, in 1769, asked for a 
grant of two million and a half acres of land between the 38th 
and 42d parallels of latitude, and east of the Sciota river. 
Franklin urged the matter in London. It was stated that 
the company offered more for this grant than the whole region 
back of the mountains had cost the British government at the 
treaty of Fort Stanwix. There was another company which 
was once more styled the " Ohio Company," that w r as ulti- 
mately merged in. the "Vandalia." A rival company under 
the name of the " Mississippi Company" was organized by 
gentlemen of Virginia, among whom Francis Lightfoot, 
Richard Henry Lee, Arthur Lee and George Washington 
were conspicuous. The Walpole petition was first rejected 
and afterward granted by the crown, August 14th, 1772. 

The British government had been strongly urged for some 
time before the Revolution to create a colonial government on 
the Ohio, west of the mountains, but appeared to be reluctant 
to do so. The royal order of 1763, prohibiting the colonial 
governors from granting patents beyond the head- waters of 
streams running into the Atlantic, as has been said, ostensibly 
to keep peace with the Indians, had behind it a purpose to 
limit the territorial claims of the older colonies, and also to 
prevent any great population from growing up in the inte- 
rior. A prominent member of the British government wrote 
a report for the privy council against the policy of creating 
such colonies. It was held that the colonies on the sea-coast 
were all connected in their business closely with the mother 
country, but if a colony or colonies were built up in the 



THE QUEBEC BILL. 325 

interior their interests would soon become inimical. The 
report indicated that it was the policy of the mother country 
to secure the production of raw material, which could be 
easily transported in the colonies, and the retention of these 
colonies as consumers of British manufactured articles. A 
rich interior colony could not afford to ship its raw products 
such a distance from the sea, and would soon be driven to 
manufacture. Whatever the reason was, the prohibitory 
order of 1763 was never rescinded. Something very different, 
however, was done. By an act of parliament, in 1774, the 
crown lands northwest of the Ohio were transferred and an- 
nexed to the royal province of Quebec. This measure was 
extremely unpopular with the colonies as several of them 
claimed portions of the country, and various enterprises, as 
we have partially shown, were on foot for its development, in 
which individual colonists were interested. This Act was no 
doubt intended, first, to put an end to the claims of the colo- 
nies on the Atlantic seaboard to that country, and also as a 
check to all schemes of private settlement. This " Quebec 
Bill," as it was called, was referred to in the Declaration of 
Independence as " their acts of pretended legislation." The 
Declaration of Independence made an end of the Quebec bill, 
as of various other things. At the outbreak of the Revolution, 
Virginia " annexed " a region of " the back country," which 
it then called the " County of Kentucky," and when Colonel 
George Rogers Clarke, in 1778, captured the military posts 
at Vincennes and Kaskaskia, during his expedition, Virginia 
once more proceeded to " annex " the lands beyond the Ohio, 
which it styled the " County of Illinois. 

At the close of the Revolutionary War the territorial ques- 
tion was a very distracting one. Besides the claims of Vir- 
ginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed a portion of 
these lands under their original charter, which extended to 
the " South Sea." Many argued, as a question of justice, that 

all of this undisposed crown land should belong to, or be sub- 

28 



326 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

ject to, the action of Congress, and the proceeds used to 
defray the expenses of the Revolutionary War. It is a cir- 
cumstance worthy of note that Thomas Paine and other Revo- 
lutionary leaders strenuously urged this view of the case. In 
point of fact, the old scrip, or war debt, was received in pay- 
ment for land, until 1806.* The claimant colonies were, 
at first, not at all inclined to relinquish these territorial 
interests. 

The Continental Congress was simply a representative body 
of the colonies, assembled for general defeuse. Feeling the 
necessity of some organization, the articles of confederation 
were adopted by Congress, November 15th, 1777, but were not 
finally agreed to by the colonies until March 1st, 1781. In 
the condition of the country at that time, engaged in a war 
with England, the delay of several of the colonies was critical. 
One of the main causes of dissension was the disposition of 
the " Crown Lands." Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware 
and Maryland objected to the disposition of the lands, as it 
stood in the articles of federation. Rhode Island proposed 
an amendment to the articles of confederation, " declaring that 
all lands within these states, the property of which was vested 
in the Crown of Great Britain, should be disposed of for the 
benefit of all the states in the confederacy;" but, adding, that 
the " jurisdiction" over these lands should remain with the 
states where they might be, or which might be adjudged to 
possess them. New Jersey took similar ground, only that the 
proceeds of the lands should be used to defray the expenses 
of the war. Delaware took a like position. Maryland 
instructed her delegates, forbidding them to ratify the articles 
of confederation until the land claims of the states were put 
upon a different basis. In fact, Maryland insisted that the 
undisposed-of crown lands should be subject to the decision 
of Congress. New York still claimed a portion of the West- 

* Donaldson's History of the Public Domain, page 205. 



ORDINANCE FOR NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 327 

era lands through treaty with the Iroquois. The other 
claimants were Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts. 
But for the critical condition of affairs it is more than proba- 
ble that the matter would not have been adjusted as it was. 
The small colonies were naturally jealous of the larger. 
Among the causes of apprehension it was anticipated, that 
if the states of Virginia, New York, Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut had their claim to these lands confirmed, the sale of 
land would greatly enrich and strengthen them, and thus they 
would not be burdened with taxes, and emigration would tend 
to these states, and they might even absorb a part of the pop- 
ulation of the weaker states. New York and Massachusetts 
were the first to yield, and, finally, Virginia and Connecticut 
agreed to the supervision of Congress, and to submit their 
claims for territory or indemnification to that body. Connec- 
ticut succeeded in retaining the Western Reserve in Ohio, 
which was as large as Connecticut. Part of this she disposed 
of to indemnify citizens who had been burned out during the 
war, and the remainder was sold, in 1795, for one million 
two hundred thousand dollars, and the proceeds chiefly used 
for educational purposes. Connecticut did not cede the juris- 
diction over these lands until 1802. Under the early ordi- 
nance a place was agreed on to draw the land by lot for the 
thirteen states, but this was repealed in 1788. 

The Congress under the confederation having thus acquired 
the territory outside of the colonies and early states, proceeded 
to take steps in reference to these common territories. The 
constitution was not framed or the government organized. 
The articles of confederation, whatever they conferred, con- 
tained nothing in them giving eminent domain to Congress. 
The provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 for the government 
of the Northwest Territory were new and bold expedients, 
both adopted before Congress was governed by constitutional 
limitations, or had a recognized field of authority. It was 
the first and only period in the history of the country when 



328 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

a policy to preserve the land for all the people might have 
been inaugurated. It is true that the public mind was in- 
fected with the idea that the land w r as something to sell. 
Nearly all of the difficulty grew out of the questions who 
should dispose of it, and who should have the proceeds. 
Doubtless there might have been a feeling among the framers 
of the ordinance that the public expected it to be sold to pay 
the debt caused by the war of the Revolution. Many of the 
leaders were aware of the importance of the land question in 
a government of the people, but between the powerful inter- 
ests of the great estates that had been created, and the general 
desire to realize money from the land to pay the war debt, the 
opportunity was not taken to secure the lands of the country 
for cultivating holders. All financiers of that early period 
looked upon the public lands as a resource to be cashed to 
pay the war debt and obligations.* 

The ordinance for the Northwest Territory is spoken of 
as a compact. A new policy was inaugurated by this 
Congress without a constitution, covering some of the most 
important interests of the future government. It will be 
observed that so far as jurisdiction and government for the 
Northwest Territory were concerned, the governments to be 
established were essentially temporary. Everything connected 
with it refers to new states to be created by the people. 
There has been no small disputation as to the authorship of 
the ordinance. That ordinance dedicated the Northwest to 
freedom. It was the first "free soil" legislation. It pro- 
vided for establishing land titles, townships, schools, religious 
liberty, and was the essential outline of free states. With so 
much in the work to commend, it is unfortunate that a broad 
foundation should not have been laid to secure the soil for 
the tillers thereof, and to prevent an aristocracy from being 
founded on land monopoly. Hayne, Benton, Coles and other 

* Donaldson's Public Domain, page 196. 



EARLY LAND SALES. 329 

Southern gentlemen claimed the authorship of the ordinance 
for Thomas Jefferson. Webster claimed it for Nathan Davis, 
of Massachusetts. It has been stated that it was suggested in 
a letter from George Washington to Mr. Duane, of New 
York, chairman of the Indian committee, written March, 
1784. Madison, while admitting the necessity of some action, 
said, in an article in the Federalist : " They have proceeded 
to form new states, to erect temporary governments, to appoint 
officers for them, aud to prescribe the condition on which such 
states shall be admitted into the confederacy. All this has 
been done, and done tvithout the least color of constitutional 
authority." Mr. Madison does not censure but urges the 
necessity for establishing constitutional government. It has 
even been held that this bond of common authority over these 
territories, as the property of the whole, and as a means of 
satisfying army claims, and meeting the debts caused by the 
war, was one of the strengthening powers that kept the early 
states together. By a resolution of 1785, squatters were 
warned against making unauthorized settlements, and settle- 
ments were not permitted on unsurveyed lands.* As it stood 
it initiated what there is of a public land policy. The mode 
adopted then for the sale and conveyance of land was much 
more primitive, and, it would appear, less* guarded than now. 
By the Act of March 3d, 1791, it was provided that the 
governor of the Northwest Territory should be authorized to 
allot lands to settlers, or provide for disposing of " granted 
lands " in amounts " according to his discretion." The lands 
were to be paid for. An Act of April 1st, 1806, authorized 
the governor and judges of Michigan Territory to lay out a 
town, including the then burned town of Detroit, and ten 
thousand acres adjacent, and to adjust all claims for lots 
therein, and to execute deeds for the same. The Act of 
March 3d, 1791, confirmed to Yincennes and other of the 

* Donaldson's Public Domain, page 197. 



330 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

old French towns their lands held in common. These com- 
mons, however, were not permitted to remain " common prop- 
erty," but were under pressure of the chattel system and an 
Act of April 20th, 1818, sold to individuals, and the proceeds 
given to schools. In spite of its abolition by law, the writer 
remembers the old common or " big field," at Kaskaskia, as 
late as 1840, where each head of a family had his portion of 
enclosed land to cultivate. The tendency among Americans 
was to individual chattel holding. Few seemed to think of 
any changed condition, or of any interest but the present. It 
is true, some profound thinkers undoubtedly considered it, 
but the tendency was the other way. On July 20th, 1790, 
Alexander Hamilton framed a plan for the sale of the public 
lands. He stated the purpose to be twofold : the first, finan- 
cial, for the sale of the land ; the second, to accommodate the 
inhabitants of the Western countries. He classifies the proba- 
ble purchasers as moneyed individuals who may buy to sell 
again, companies for settlement and individual emigrants. No 
lands should be sold except where Indian title had been extin- 
guished. Purchasers could buy five hundred acres, but indi- 
vidual settlers only one hundred acres. Larger tracts were to 
be set apart for sale in townships not less than ten miles square. 
Any sized tract might be purchased under " special contract " 
or agreement. Enough of the available land was to be held 
back from sale to meet applications of holders of scrip, or of 
holders of the securities of the loan then proposed. The price 
of lands was to be thirty cents per acre in gold, silver, or public 
securities. Credit should not be given unless the tract was at 
least ten miles square, in which cases one-fourth of the purchase 
money must be paid down. Surveys were to be made at the 
expense of purchasers or grantees, who were also required to 
pay fees for patents, which were to be issued by the President.* 
ft The elder Adams, in his defense of the American govern- 

* American State Papers, vol. i., Public Lands, page 8. 



LAND AS THE BASIS OF POWER. 331 

ments, says : " Property in the soil is the natural foundation 
of power and authority. //Three cases of soil ownership are 
supposable. First, if the prince own the land he will be ab- 
solute. All who cultivate the soil, holding at his pleasure, 
must be subject to his will. Second, where the landed prop- 
erty is held by a few men the real power of the government 
will be in the hands of an aristocracy or nobility, whatever they 
are named. Third, if the lands are held and owned by the 
people, and prevented from drifting into one or a few hands, 
the true power will rest with the people, and that government 
will, essentially, be a Democracy, whatever it may be called. 
Under such a constitution the people will constitute the 
State."// 

He also wrote : " An attempt was made to introduce the 
feudal system and the canon law iuto America." * Mr. 
Adams publishes a letter from Turgot to Dr. Richard Price, 
dated Paris, March 22d, 1778, in which Turgot says that in 
America due attention has not been paid to the great distinc- 
tion, and the only one founded in nature of the two classes of 
men, those who are landlords and those who are not.f The 
American method of treating the land question did not escape 
the observation of reflective minds in Europe. In the same 
letter, evidently in reference to the idea of territorial posses- 
sions as -discussed in the confederated Congress, Turgot says, 
" The pretended interest of possessing more or less territory 
vanishes when territory is justly considered as belonging to 
individuals, not nations." 

A few years later the French Revolution swept special 
privileges away. Mirabeau was expostulated with as to the 
policy of establishing small farms in the hands of the cultiva- 
tors, but while he admitted that great farms, mechanically 
managed, might produce food at a cheaper rate, and perhaps 
more products, he contended that the general interests of the 

* John Adams' Works, vol. iii., page 464. f Ibid., page 280. 



332 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

mass of the people, especially the actual agriculturists, were 
advanced as well as secured by the system of small farms. 
The practice of the United States government has been to sell 
land to individual purchasers, giving fee simple title. The 
first sale of public lands reported, was in 1796, when the 
proceeds amounted to $4,836.13. Next year the sales had 
risen to $83,540.60. They increased, and in 1811 they had 
reached the amount for that year, of $1,040,237.53. In 1818 
they reached $2,606,564.77. The two years when the sales 
of public lands produced most, were 1 835, when the receipts 
were $14,757,600.75, and 1836, when the proceeds reached 
$24,877,179.80. In 1881 the proceeds of public land were 
$9,810,705,01. From 1836 to 1884 the sales had dropped 
to one, two and three million dollars a year, except that in 
1855, the year after Kansas and Nebraska were open to settle- 
ment, when they ran up to $11,497,049.07. During the six 
war years they were very low. In 1861, $870,658.54. In 
1862, $152,203.77. In 1863, $167,617.17, and in 1864, 
$588,333.29. In 1865, $996,553.31, and in 1866, $665,031.- 
03. The total amount received for sales of public lands from 
the beginning of the government, including the sales of 1884, 
amounted to $230,285,892.38.* It will thus be seen that 
the total proceeds of the sale of half a continent amounted to 
less than one year's revenue of the government in the years 
1882, 1883 or 1884. Under the plan of Hamilton as after- 
ward modified, and until 1810, lands were sold partially on 
credit. Up to that date 3,386,000 acres were so sold, pro- 
ducing the sum of $7,062,000,f 

Small, although the proceeds of these sales have been, they 
were sufficient to create considerable disturbance. In the 
early history of the government there was a constant struggle 
about the proceeds. As the older colonies, that became states, 

* Spofford's American Almanac, 1885, page 66. 
f Donaldson's Public Domain, page 204. 



DISTRIBUTING THE SURPLUS. 333 

had the control of the land within their limits, the new states 
desired to have it also. Of this, the older states were jealous, 
as they considered it part of the public patrimony. Between 
the proceeds of public lands and the steady increase of cus- 
toms tax, a considerable surplus revenue was accumulated in 
the treasury, and this locking up of money was supposed to 
reduce the circulating medium of the country, to the detri- 
ment of business. Thomas Jefferson, in his second inaugural 
address, in 1805, proposed a distribution or "repartition" 
among the states, and also recommended a corresponding 
amendment to the Constitution, so that this fund could be 
applied, in time of peace, " to rivers, canals, roads, arts, man- 
ufactures, education and other great objects within each state." 
Jeiferson objected to a gradual reduction of the revenue, and 
said, " Shall we suppress the impost and give that advantage 
to foreign over domestic manufacture?" The surplus and 
expected surplus, however, dwindled away, under various 
causes, during the last term of his administration. In 1809 
Gallatin announced a deficit. Mr. Madison, during his ad- 
ministration, vetoed a bill called the " Bonus Bill," on consti- 
tutional grounds, which proposed to distribute a surplus for 
roads, canals, etc. Many statesmen of that day preferred 
schemes of distributing money among the states, to be applied 
by the states to improvements, rather than allow Congress to 
disburse it. Some even proposed that the surplus funds 
should be distributed to maintain the state governments in- 
stead of raising taxes, a proposition of a remarkable character. 
To prevent locking up needed currency, the surplus funds, or 
receipts were placed, first, in the United States Bank, and 
then, by Jackson, in state banks. These banks paid two per 
cent, to the United States on all amounts above what related 
to the demands of the government or their retained capital, 
and loaned funds at ten and twelve per cent, interest to pri- 
vate individuals. The great sales of land in 1835 and 1836 
were chiefly due to land speculation. A considerable quantity 



334 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

of the laud was purchased with borrowed mouey. That it 
was not due to au unusual increase of immigration is evident. 
The emigration in 1835 was 45,374, and in 1836, 76,242. 
In 1837 the emigration increased to 79,340, but the sales fell 
from nearly twenty-five millions to $6,776,236.52. In 1851 
the emigration had swelled to 379,466, and the sales of land 
produced $2,352,305.30. It is estimated that $34,100,610.75 
of the sales of these two years were to speculators not agricul- 
tural purchasers.* The purchasers borrowed from the banks. 
The money paid for land would then be deposited by the 
land officers in the bank, and again loaned out to another man 
to buy land with, and so on. 

The laws for the sale of public lands and the regulations 
under them were modified after the time of Hamilton. The 
price was raised. Contests arose out of the old colonial, state, 
and other grants, which had to be adjusted. The great lati- 
tude allowed territorial officers was curtailed. The system of 
private entry was introduced, and thus in different ways the 
public lands were disposed of during the first half century 
of our history. In 1849 and 1850 swamp land acts were 
passed, by which Congress agreed to give the swamp lands 
to states for their reclamation. From that date up to 1884, 
71,938,140.37 acres were selected by the states under the Act, 
and there have been approved and confirmed to them 57,794,- 
258.14 acres. It is generally admitted that the fraudulent 
practices connected with swamp land locations have been quite 
as great as by any mode of disposing of the public lands. The 
number of swamps drained and reclaimed by this process have 
not been noteworthy exhibits in the improved productive in- 
dustries of the country. 

On the 1st of January, 1 837, there was an actual surplus 
in the treasury of $41,468,859.97. On the 23d of June of 
that year an act was passed to distribute or loan this money, 

* History of the Surplus Revenue, page 139. 



GOVERNMENT AS A LOAN AGENCY. 335 

all except five millions, to the states, according to their pro- 
portion of Congressional representation. By the terms of the 
Act the money was to be paid to the parties the states desig- 
nated to receive it, on delivery of certificates of deposit bear- 
ing five per cent, interest. When it was urged against the 
measure that it was unconstitutional to raise revenue for dis- 
tribution, it was answered that this was not derived from 
revenue but from the sale of property (land) which belonged 
to the people. On the 1st of January, 1837, fourteen banks 
of New York city held $12,294,067.80 of government depos- 
its. In less than four months $6,168,854.60 were withdrawn 
from them for distribution. The amendment of the Senate 
to make the distribution by Congressional representation 
rather than upon the census was to give the Southern states 
more than they otherwise would get. In addition, the states 
that had an excess of representation got more than their share. 
If it had been paid, per capita, to freemen, it Avould have 
been three dollars and eigty-two cents to each freeman in 
Delaware, and one dollar and forty-nine cents in Illinois. 
South Carolina would have had three dollars and ninety-four 
cents, and New York one dollar and seventy-six cents. The 
money was not distributed per capita. Some states added it 
largely to their educational funds. Some expended it in im- 
provements. In Illinois it was mostly sunk in unproduc- 
tive railroads together with no inconsiderable portion of the 
proceeds of the state credit. One amusing circumstance con- 
nected with it in Illinois, was, that the legislature considerately 
voted a portion of it in money to those counties where the 
improvements were not to be made. The bewildered officers 
of these counties did not know what to do with it. Some of 
them attempted to place it in local improvements, but the 
popular plan was to loan it out to such citizens as wanted to 
borrow it. On these occasions the county seats were besieged 
by a crowd of borrowers who came there to get the money 
and endorse for one another. Altogether the history of the 



336 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

distribution of the surplus revenue is worth more as a lesson 
in political economy than it was as a financial venture. 

Various experiments were tried to divert the proceeds of 
the sales of public lands. At first, one section in a township 
was granted to the states where there were public lands, for 
school purposes, being one thirty-sixth part of the whole. 
Later it was increased to two sections of eacli township, or 
the eighteenth part. These were sold by the states or local 
school boards. They were very generally sold on credit, 
usually at ten par cent., and, finally, eight per cent, interest, 
the proceeds as paid going into the school fund. While 
much school land was bought by speculators there were usually 
parties living in the neighborhood who purchased it to add to 
their farms or secure it for their children. It was sold 
for three or four times the price of government lands, the 
local policy being not to dispose of it until all or the bulk 
of the public lands were sold. Another expedient was the 
Graduation Act, or Acts. Lands which had for a certain 
period been in the market at the "upset" price of one dollar 
and twenty-five cents per acre, were gradually reduced until, 
finally, they were sold at twelve and a half cents per acre. 
Large tracts in several of the Western states were so sold 
some thirty years ago, and, although the purchaser was re- 
quired to swear that the land was for his own use and benefit, 
this was really no obstruction to subsequent private sale. 
States succeeded in securing grants for colleges, universities, 
normal schools and internal improvements. These were dis- 
posed of under state law. Of the grants to states for educa- 
tional purposes, in addition to the school sections, 1,814,769,- 
QoQ acres were given to twenty-one states and nine territories, 
and to the same for other schools 68,083,914 acres; for 
universities, 1,265,520 acres ; for agricultural colleges 300,- 
000 acres were set apart, for each member of Congress and 
senator in the states, and scrip was issued therefor, which has 
been in the market and gone into the hands of speculators. 



GRANTS TO CORPORATIONS. 337 

To deaf and dumb asylums, 44,970 acres.* The states to 
whom these grants were given contained the public lands. 
There were also granted to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illi- 
nois, Wisconsin and Michigan, 4,405,980 acres for canal 
purposes. Congress also granted for internal improvements to 
the states of Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisi- 
ana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minne- 
sota and Kansas, from September, 1850, up to March 3d, 
1873, very large tracts of land. It is impossible to state 
correctly just how much as there is a considerable difference 
existing, and unadjusted between the amounts claimed and the 
amounts certified, but, in round numbers, they have received, 
or will receive, some fifty million acres. These lands, it will 
be observed, were, and are, to be disposed of by the railroad 
companies, on such time, terms, amounts of acres and condi- 
tions as they shall see fit, thus throwing immense bodies of 
land for purely speculative purposes on the market. 

Besides these grants to states, Congress began to give grants 
directly to corporations. Corporations had so far been state 
institutions, acting under and with state authority. The cor- 
porations receiving grants from Congress of the alternate 
sections, to the distance of twenty or twenty-five miles from 
their line of road, were the Union Pacific, Central Branch 
Pacific, Kansas Pacific, successor to Denver Pacific, Central 
Pacific, Western Pacific, Burlington and Missouri River Co., 
Sioux City and Pacific, Northern Pacific, Oregon Branch of 
Central Pacific, Oregon and California, Atlantic and Pacific, 
Southern Pacific, and Southern Pacific Branch line.f It is 
impossible to tell exactly what these great corporations are 
entitled to, first, because some of their claims are unadjusted, 
and secondly, because many of them have delayed the certifi- 
cation of these lands, as they did not wish to have them tax- 
able until they had disposed of them. Some idea may be 

* Spoflford's American Almanac for 1885, page 324. f Ibid., page 353. 
29 



338 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

formed when it is stated that the grant of the Union Pacific 
is estimated at twelve million acres, the Kansas Pacific and 
Denver Pacific, at seven million one hundred acres, the Cen- 
tral Pacific, eight million acres, the Northern Pacific, forty- 
seven million acres, the Atlantic and Pacific, forty-two million 
acres. These enormous tracts, equal to the area of several 
states, are, in their disposition, subject to the will of the rail- 
road companies. They can dispose of them in enormous 
tracts if they please, and there is not a single safeguard to 
secure this portion of the national domain to cultivating yeo- 
manry. The modes of selling by the United States have not 
been much better. The preemption law was passed in 1841, 
the avowed purpose being to restrict the land to actual set- 
tlers. If such was really the purpose of the law, it was ill- 
adapted to secure the desired end. The settlers are required, 
indeed, to make some improvements on the tract, but the 
improvements made are trifling, and, after title has been 
secured, there is nothing to prevent the sale of the tract, or 
the sale of fifty tracts, so secured, to any one. Besides, the 
law admits of frauds in the mode of securing land. On the 
20th of May, 1862, the Homestead law was enacted. About 
the only difference between the preemption law and the home- 
stead law is, that the man preempting has to pay one dollar 
and twenty-five cents per acre, while the homesteader only 
pays some few dollars in fees, and is required to live, or keep 
up an appearance of living, on the tract for five years. Neither 
of these laws possessed or pretended to possess any safeguard 
to prevent the land drifting in large quantities into the hands 
of speculators and capitalists. In addition, large tracts of 
land were from time to time thrown on the market. There 
was usually a pressure on the part of settlers to prevent this, 
and also a pressure on the part of purchasers and land specu- 
lators to secure it. Immense quantities of bounty land 
warrants have been issued and sold. These can be used by 
preemptors in paying for their land, as they were transfer- 



LANDHOLDING BY SPECULATORS. 339 

able, but in addition, when the land, by proclamation, was 
offered for sale, any one could buy it at the auction, or if not 
bid off at the auction it was open to purchase, for cash, at one 
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, unless within raiload 
limits, when the price was doubled. Bounty land warrauts 
could also be located on it. Speculators and capitalists bought up 
millions of acres of public land in that way. Areas, equal to 
whole states are thus held, the only check on the practice 
being state taxation. To avoid this the railroad land grant 
companies had an amendment enacted into a law to the effect 
that they should not obtain their patents until they had paid 
a small fee to defray the expense of surveying. This they 
took care not to pay, or only to pay as fast as they could sell 
tracts to some purchasers, on which occasions they paid the 
surveying fee and obtained deeds for the portions they sold. 
In this way they have held millions of acres for speculative 
purposes, waiting for a rise in prices, without taxation, while 
the farmers on adjacent lands paid taxes. 

It will be seen that in all the stages of the American land 
history there has never been any adequate effort to secure the 
public land for the continuous use of the cultivators of the 
soil, in proportions just to the interests of all. No steps have 
been taken to prevent the land from going into or remaining 
in the hands of unoccupying holders or preventing the creation 
of a landlord and a tenant class. No steps have been taken 
to secure a subdivision as population increased. In the 
United States land has simply been a chattel. A legal certi- 
ficate of title may pass through the hands of a dozen persons, 
none of whom have ever seen the land. A man in New 
York, who has never seen an acre ploughed, may own half 
of one of our greatest states and draw revenues from it with- 
out once setting foot on it. Land was cheap and easy of 
access to all. The farmer and land speculator entered into 
competition for it, and behind them both, profiting by their 
accidents and necessities, the capitalist is, and has been, gather- 



340 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

ing it up. It has been a game of great speculators and little 
speculators, and the land has steadily drifted out of the hands 
of cultivating occupants. 

Besides the capitalist who invests in land, on the theory 
that a country rapidly increasing in population, will insure 
greatly enhanced value to land, we have another class of 
speculators. They are not capitalists, for their chief stock in 
trade is precedents. They are not "actual settlers," but they 
are middlemen, who go between the government and the 
actual settler who really, in good earnest, improves and cul- 
tivates the soil. They have been called " squatters." They 
are really dealers in that vague commodity — " inchoate titles." 
They do not squat for the purpose of making a home, but for 
selling claims. With them an affidavit is a mere form. They 
calculate to sell without preempting, partly because they 
rarely have money, and partly because it might interfere with 
their business in future transactions. If they do preempt at 
all, it is to close a sale, the terms of which are already made, 
and they move off to a new field to renew their operations. 
In the early settlement of Kansas, one armed company of 
thirty-two men took every timbered claim on a valuable 
stream that ran through three counties. They laid founda- 
tions of four logs, marked the trees on the claims, and had 
squatter organizations in each township. They hovered over 
them to and fro, occasionally building a rough cabin or plow- 
ing a few furrows, but their chief business was to find custom- 
ers. The revolver and bowie-knife were the certificates of 
title. There was an unwritten legal fiction behind them, 
however, that has entered largely into the pioneer land system 
of the United States : it is the doctrine that when a man dis- 
covers a tract of land that no other man has appropriated, he 
acquires a certain kind of right to it, acquired to the exclusion 
of all other persons in the United States. He acquires a right 
in it altogether independent of the question whether he in- 
tends to make a home of it ; acquires it without the slightest 



SQUATTER TITLE. 341 

reference to its ultimate and permanent improvement. This 
right of discovery is a doctrine famous in American coloniza- 
tion. The squatter does not climb a hill, hoist a flag and 
take possession in the name of any king or potentate, but he 
notches and lays four logs together, makes a " blaze " on one 
of them and puts his name, — or if that be inconvenient, some 
other man's name, — with a date showing when "this claim was 
taken ;" then he straps his revolver a little tighter, and sends 
his defiance to the civilized world. There are many other 
squatters not so violent, who do things in a more respectable 
way, but who are still essentially " dealers in inchoate titles." 
I cannot call the earnest pioneer, seeking a home, a squatter. 
He may be styled one, but he goes into a wilderness, finds a 
home, improves it, cultivates it and raises a family. He de- 
serves well of his country, even if he obtained the right to use 
the land for nothing. Still he ought not to be permitted to 
make himself the medium for transferring the land to capital- 
ists, and should have no right to exclude all other men for all 
generations. 

A great deal is now said by the people; among con- 
gressmen, committees of Congress, commissioners and land 
office officials about the " abuses " of the " preemption law/' 
of the " homestead law," and of the " timber culture laws." 
There have been abuses enough, but the system under each 
of these laws, in its best estate, was sadly defective and bad. 
The preemption and homestead laws professed to do what 
they did not. The theory was that the land should be re- 
served for the cultivators of the soil. Neither law secured 
that end. I have been very much at a loss, in different stages 
of my land experience, to determine exactly the sentiment in 
the public mind that has prevented a wise and far-reaching 
adjustment of the public land question. It could hardly be 
an accident. The first idea would be that the speculative and 
real estate interest was too strong to permit of wholesome, 
permanent legislation. Such a view of the case is not without 



342 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

foundation, but there may have been something else. Perhaps 
it was thought by men, not destitute of capacity, that it was 
desirable, as early as possible, to have all the public domain 
in private hands, and by making it a chattel, providing for 
its easy transfer without let or hindrance, they believed all 
could be thus accommodated. If the hat-maker became dis- 
gusted with silk, felt and beaver skins, he could sell his 
blocks and smoothing irons, and buy eighty acres. If the 
pioneer, who imagined an Arcadia, with the genial farmer 
sitting under his vine and fig tree, got tired of mauling rails, 
breaking prairie with oxen, and the ague with quinine, he 
could sell his " place," together with what a young squatter 
once proposed to sell, "his embediruents," and try to get a 
position as a clerk in a store. American character is not only 
enterprising but versatile. Young America might cry " scat- 
ter and divide all this national real estate; tangle it with no 
bars ; make it easy to get and easy to sell, and thus it can best 
serve all interests." I have endeavored to define and exhibit 
what I have reason to suppose is a strong underlying senti- 
ment. In regard to it I would only say that such a system 
might do in the squatting era, but we must survive the 
squatting era. There is a future coming to the American land 
system with changed conditions. 

Let us look at the commissioner's last report. He says : " In 
the early settlement of the country, when the broad expanse 
of the public domain was unsettled, a liberal system of laws 
was adopted providing for an easy acquisition of individual 
titles, and even down to later periods the object apparently 
sought was to hasten the disposal of the public lands." * 
Referring to the evasions and frauds under the preemption 
and homestead laws, the commissioner writes : " The prevail- 
ing tendency of legislation has been to remove restrictions 
rather than to impose them, and Acts have been passed pri- 

* Keport of the General Land Office for 1884, page 18. 



APPROACHING- END OF PUBLIC DOMAIN. 343 

marily for the relief or benefit of settlers which have been 
availed of to the defeat of settlements, by the facility afforded 
for the aggregation of land titles in speculative and monopo- 
listic possession ; " and adds, " It is my opinion that the time 
has fully arrived when wastefulness in the disposal of the 
public lands should cease, and that the portion remaining should 
be economized for the use of actual settlers only." To show 
how opportune the time is, he continues : " The time is near at 
hand when there will be no public land to invite settlement or 
afford citizens of the country an opportunity to secure cheap 
homes." * In the same strain : "Deducting areas wholly un- 
productive and unavailable for ordinary purposes, and the 
remaining land shrinks to comparatively small proportions." 

I have before me the report made October 22d, 1885, by 
the present commissioner, Mr. Sparks, in which the following 
language is used : " I found that the magnificent estate of the 
nation, in its public lands, has been, to a Avide extent, wasted 
under defective and improvident laws, and through a laxity 
of public administration." f " The policy of disposing of 
public lands as a means of raising revenue has long since been 
rejected by enlightened views of public economy." % Had such 
" enlightened views " been long potent, we might have had a 
better land system. In the same spirit, he remarks : " The pre- 
emption system was established when land was abundant, and 
no motive existed for the assertion of false claims. It was 
then a measure of protection to actual settlers against the ab- 
sorption of lands by private cash entry." § Further, I find : 
" The near approach of the period when the United States 
will have no land to dispose of has stimulated the exertions 
of capitalists and corporations to acquire outlying regions of 
public land in mass, by whatever means, legal or illegal." || 

* Eeport of the General Land Office for 1884, page 17. 
f Eeport of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for October, 
1885, page 1. 

% Ibid., page 75. \ Ibid., page 67. || Ibid., page 79. 



344 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

To quote him once more: "At the outset of my administra- 
tion I was confronted with overwhelming evidence that the 
public domain was made the prey of unscrupulous speculation 
and the worst forms of land monopoly." * There is nothing 
too strongly stated in the report. In fact, the American 
public scarcely realize the near approach of the time when the 
public domain will afford us no facility for the expansion 
that has, so far, saved us from the evils the system we have 
created must entail. We look at the figures showing acres and 
acres as still remaining, and forget that the productive land 
is gone. Long miles of mountains, and sandy plains and 
cactus desert remain, without soil, rain or water; even the 
squatter would shrink from such regions. That a part of it 
may be utilized hereafter, when greater density makes it a 
necessity, is probable, but these must be comparatively small 
portions here and there. The deserts of Arizona, Southern 
California, Utah and Nevada are arid wastes of the most des- 
olate description. Rivers lose themselves in them and are 
drunk up by the quenchless thirst of these burning plains. 
The sand is carried in whirlwinds hither and thither, and 
even the cactus is often parched and sere. Sharp, rugged, 
treeless and apparently waterless peaks shoot themselves up 
like islands on the wilderness. The mirage, peculiar to the 
dry atmosphere, makes the rocky peaks look as if they were 
smoking and burning. Then there are miles on miles of bare, 
rocky, treeless mountains, not high enough to be snow-capped, 
and upon which rain rarely falls. Such is no inconsiderable 
portion of the heritage that on the maps and on the books of 
the general land office figure as the public lands of the United 
States. 

In his report for 1884, the commissioner says : " The forest 
areas of the country are rapidly diminishing, and the timber 

* Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for October, 

1885, page 48. 



COAL AND TIMBER LAND. 345 

lands of the United States will, under existing laws, soon be 
exhausted." * He adds : " To a great extent these (timber) 
lands are now appropriated by illegal preemption, and com- 
muted homestead entries made without settlement, except that 
of lumber camps, and without improvement except the cutting 
and removing of the timber for commercial purposes." The 
present commissioner suggests that " Wise and speedy meas- 
ures should be adopted for the preservation of forests. * * * 
To this end I recommend the immediate withdrawal from 
appropriation, sale or disposal of all public forests, and of 
lands valuable chiefly for timber, subject to future legisla- 
tion." f Commissioner McFarland, in reference to mineral 
land, said : " Coal lands, the government price of which is 
ten and twenty dollars per acre, are illegally obtained at the 
minimum price of non-mineral land. The government loses 
the difference in price, while the public lose in the increased 
price of coal, the land beiug thus acquired and held." Speak- 
ing of the modes by which capitalists obtain large tracts by 
using the names and affidavits of fraudulent preempters, he 
says : " Meanwhile, vast stretches of uncultivated land are 
everywhere observable, claims to which are held, or titles to 
which have been acquired, in evasions of restrictions of quan- 
tity that may lawfully be appropriated by single individuals, 
and without complying with the conditions of settlement, 
improvement and cultivation required by law." J And, on 
the same page : " The numerous methods of disposal now 
existing, and the laxity of precautionary measures against 
misappropriation, are resulting in a waste of the public do- 
main, without the compensations attendant upon small owner- 
ships for actual settlement and occupation." 

The commissioner refers to the Act of May 14th, 1880, 
which doubtless was enacted in the interest of our squatter 

* Keport of the General Land Office, 1884, page 18. 

f Report of the General Land Commissioner, October, 1885, page 84. 

J Report of the General Land Office, 1884, page 18. 



346 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

friends : " The effect of this statute," he says, " is to invite 
speculative entries for the purpose of selling relinquishments. 
The practical result is, that when a new township is surveyed, 
large portions of the land are at once covered by filings and 
entries, relinquishments of which are offered for sale like 
stocks on the market." These are the vices of a bad system. 
They exhibit the steps taken to throw the domain of the 
country into a few hands. The frauds under the homestead 
and preemption law are only a little worse than the laws 
themselves. In this way, and for a mere song, mischief is 
being made for coming generations, and conditions of society, 
fostered contrary to the genius of the American republic. 
These frauds merely show that the speculative purchaser 
cannot wait for ordinary methods. 

While the public lands, after survey, were in such a condi- 
tion that they could only be taken under preemption or home- 
stead law, large tracts have time and again, as demands for 
investment in land pressed, been thrown on the market by 
presidential proclamation, and whole townships taken, every 
unclaimed acre being appropriated by non-resident holders 
or speculators. The railroad grants furnish a partial sup- 
ply to meet the land hunger of investing capitalists : even 
these do not satisfy the land speculators. Frauds, always 
perpetrated to some extent, have assumed the wholesale pro- 
portions stated by the commissioner. Large tracts have been 
going into the possession of alien holders. They cannot, it is 
true, purchase or get title under the preemption and home- 
stead laws, without declaring their intention to become citi- 
zens, but there is nothing to hinder an alien from buying at 
second hand all a straw preemptor or commuting homesteader 
works through the crevices of a loose law. No alien should 
be permitted to own a foot of land in these United States. 
In addition to this, there are sales from private parties, railroad 
companies and Mexican land grants, not to mention the do- 
main of the state of Texas. 



MEXICAN LAND GRANTS. 347 

Texas was the only new state admitted to the Union that 
was permitted to hold possession of or control the disposition 
of her public lands. After asserting her independence of 
Mexico she remained a separate republic for a very brief 
period, and when admitted to the Union succeeded in retain- 
ing control of all her domain. The use Texas has made of 
this power is scarcely such as to tempt Congress to repeat the 
experiment. Bad although the Congressional modes were, 
the Texas modes were infinitely worse. Instead of securing 
the land for actual settlers, reckless grants of it were made 
to every corporation or proposed enterprise. Land scrip for 
all kinds of service was issued, until it sold at a few cents per 
acre, and this scrip fell into the hands of speculating pur- 
chasers. So much scrip was issued that, enormous though 
her area is, there was not land enough to take it up, and for 
several years parties have been engaged in trying to secure a 
piece of the adjacent territory to locate the scrip on. In point 
of fact, there has, in all the West, been a strong element, both 
in politics and business, deeply interested in land speculation. 
This has largely shaped land legislation, or had it shaped 
in its interests. From the suggestions of land speculators 
have come the loose modes permitted by Congress in legis- 
lating on land. 

Other fruitful sources of mischief in a few of the South- 
western states and territories, including California, have been 
the Mexican land grants. At the close of the Mexican war 
a large amount of territory was annexed by the Uuited States. 
In the treaty of Guadaloape Hidalgo it was provided that all 
rights and interests existing under Mexican law should be 
respected and maintained by the United States. This referred 
chiefly to the interests and property rights of those Mexicans 
who were thus absorbed into the United States. One diffi- 
culty not then foreseen, lay in the fact that the American and 
Mexican land systems were in many respects widely different. 
There had been grants of land by the Spanish Crown. Grants 



348 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

by the viceroys in the different territories. Grants by the 
Mexican republic and its officers. These grants, moreover, 
were of a widely different character. The tillable land was 
usually in a town grant, where each citizen had his share of 
cultivated land, usually on some river, and paid his water-tax 
(for irrigation) to the local officer, or " Acequia Keeper." 
Even when the grants were made in the names of the few first 
settlers, they were intended for the benefit of all who might 
follow. Then there were grazing grants, for that purpose 
alone, sometimes to individuals, but usually for the common use 
of communities. All mines were royal or government prop- 
erty. The farming grants and the grazing grants conveyed no 
right to mineral, as the latter could, on discovery, be worked 
by any one on payment of the royalty to government. It can 
readily be seen that to apply the American land system to 
these grants would work confusion. The American land 
laws contemplated purely individual rights. The land sold 
or conveyed was a chattel. Ownership was restricted to no 
special purpose, and it was not complicated with the rights of 
others. In addition to these differences, the boundaries of the 
grants were rarely made from surveys at the time, but often 
were the summits of mountain ranges, not well defined ; the 
best of them admitted of a great deal of latitude in survey- 
ing. There was a certain class of general grants, of a few 
leagues square, and another class much larger. Private grants 
were sometimes made of a vast tract to some military leader 
or favorite, but while it included the lands and commons of 
the people, their rights by the Spanish law were independent 
of his, and could not be absorbed by him. To confirm the 
entire grant to him would place whole towns or villages at 
his mercy, or convey their property absolutely to him, ignor- 
ing their rights. The original Spanish and Mexican system 
as designed, was intended to secure the rights of all, but 
drifted into a condition of affairs similar to that created by 
the feudal system. In each community or town there was a 



MEXICAN LAND GRANTS. 349 

prominent man -who had great herds and these ate up the 
general pasturage. This functionary usually kept a store, 
and traded so that every one was in debt to him. If there 
was a mill, he or his family owned it. Under the old Mexi- 
can law many of the poorer people were his peons. In New 
Mexico the Americans ironically called these personages 
" Dukes." The annexation of that portion of Mexico caused 
a good deal of confusion on account of these conflicting Mexi- 
can and American ideas. The "dukes" not being able to re- 
tain laborers as peons, after annexation, took the former 
peons' share of the tillable land in collection of debts, and even 
their orchards and gardens in the villages. Individual grants 
that had never been heard of before made their appearance. 
Originally the Spanish records were well kept, but revolutions 
and political changes destroyed many. At one time in Santa 
Fe an immense quantity of old records were sold and scat- 
tered as waste paper. An Act of Congress was passed July 
22d, 1854, providing for the settlement of these claims through 
their presentation to the surveyor-general, and through him 
to Congress. Little progress was made toward a settlement. 
Among the claims presented it was darkly hinted that some 
were manufactured. Settlers in either of the states or territo- 
ries affected by this class of claims were at a loss to know 
where to locate. In his first work, Mr. Henry George said 
that California had been cursed with Mexican grants. Grant 
holders would watch settlers and miners and have a location 
made to include their improvements.* In that work, he 
states, that not one-fourth of the land sold by the United States 
went into the hands of cultivators. f Iu his report, the land 
commissioner says, that in thirty years seventy Mexican 
claims have been confirmed by Congress. Ninety-four are 
pending before that body, while an unknown number remain 
on the files of the surveyor-general. Some of the maps of 

* Our Land Policy, National and State, page 14. | Ibid., page 4. 

30 



350 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

New Mexico show claims that absorb nearly all of the valuable 
land together with a good deal of worthless country. Travel- 
ers in that region, if they are supposed to be inquiring with a 
view to purchase grants, are often shown carefully preserved 
papers with the seals and signatures, to all appearance, of vice- 
roys or governors long since dead, conveying great tracts of 
unknown and unsurveyed districts. 

In hastily sketching the modes by which large portions of 
country in these United States have been segregated from the 
body of the public domain, and vested in certain individuals 
or corporations, " their heirs or assigns," I have endeavored 
to give the various processes. There is still a popular delusion 
that American agricultural lands are largely in the hands of 
cultivating farmers. Proud of a supposed boundless domain 
our citizens have been unconscious that an absentee landlordism 
has been growing up, that threatens to become almost as bad 
as the feudal system. 

In a letter to the writer from Hon. W. A. J. Sparks, com- 
missi oner of the general land office, of date January 7th, 
1886, in reference to the total number of entries of the fol- 
lowing character made from the first operations under the 
law, the commissioner says that there were " computed from 
the commencement of business to June 30th, 1885, of original 
homestead entries 714,599, embracing 90,462,499.58 acres, 
and of final homestead entries 257,395, embracing 31,895,- 
464.27 acres." It will thus be seen that of the acres in- 
cluded in the original entries, but little over one-third was 
taken by the perfected entries, and while some of the former 
of course, were abandoned, it is a legitimate inference that a 
large number of the cases not perfected were held or used for 
some kind of speculative purpose. The total number of 
timber culture entries he gives at " 132,275, embracing 
21,716,747.89 acres." Up to the date given the amount of 
land " located by military bounty land warrants was 61,080,- 
670 acres;" a very considerable portion of this sixty-one 



NUMBER OF SEPARATE FARMS. 351 

million acres was located by purchasers of military bounty 
scrip for land speculation. 

The number of separate farms in the United States does 
not indicate the number of owners, for one may own a good 
many. Thus the statement that in 1880 there were 4,008,- 
907 farms in the United States, containing 536,081,835 acres, 
with 284,771,042 acres of improved land,* must be accepted 
with some limitations. The value of the four million farms 
is placed at $10,197,096,776.00, while the estimated annual 
product for 1879 of "all farm productions, sold, consumed, 
or on hand," is $2,213,402,564, being considerably over one- 
fifth or twenty per cent, of the estimated value of these 
farms, f The same authority gives the number of persons 
actively engaged in agriculture in 1880 as 7,670,493.$ The 
number of farmers or planters, 4,225,945," § which is only a 
small percentage more than there are farms, must not lead to 
the impression that these farmers or planters are owners of 
the soil they cultivate, or that each of them has a separate 
farm. Of farm laborers, not farmers, there are 3,323,876, 
the remainder of the seven million six hundred and seventy 
thousand being dairymen, overseers, stock drovers, and mis- 
cellaneous employees. 

These figures are more significant than at the first glance 
appears. ///Of the 4,008,907 farms in the United States, we 
find, in the same table, that 2,984,306 are returned as being 
held by cultivating owners ; || and this is stated somewhat 
triumphantly as an evidence that the actual cultivators are 
largely the owners of the soil. In the first place there is 
confessedly 1,024,601 farms held by renters, or upwards of 
one-fourth of the whole.!" ^For a nation not yet out of the 
squatting era, with some public lands still left to take, the 

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture. 

f Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 373. 

X Ibid., p. 274. I Ibid. 

|| Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture, page 28. fl Ibid., page 29. . 



352 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

fact that more than one-fourth of the farms in the whole 
country have already drifted into the condition of landlord 
and tenant, would in itself be sufficiently alarming ;*nor are 
these all small tracts, the record showing that 291,703 of 
these rented farms contain from one hundred to several thou- 
sand acres of tillable land, the small rented farms under ten 
acres only numberiug 51,184. These figures, however, do 
not by any means tell us the whole story. Besides the far- 
mers who by themselves and families cultivate the soil, there 
is a large number of farms cultivated by capitalist owners, 
who do a supervising or wholesale business by the labor of 
wage workers, styled " agricultural laborers." By the figures 
we have given, while there are 2,984,306 cultivating land 
owners, there are 3,323,876 farm laborers, men who do not 
even rent land. The census gives the. average acreage of 
improved land to each farm at seventy-one acres, but of the 
farms of and under one hundred and sixty acres of laud, the 
average improved land falls under forty acres. That may 
be accepted as the average size of farms actually cultivated 
by the occupants and their families with but occasional out- 
side help. There are 92,212 farms not rented, of from five 
hundred to several thousand acres, owned, we may say, by 
capitalist owners. Of farms having in cultivation from one 
hundred to five hundred acres, there are 1,416,618, nearly a 
million and a half of farms that we can certainly consider 
are largely owned by capitalists, and are chiefly cultivated by 
laborers.* We can thus see where the three million three 
hundred and twenty-three thousand " agricultural laborers " 
are employed. The single item of capitalist farmers in- 
cludes one-half of the " cultivating owners." Above the 
standard of farms that are actually cultivated by the owners, 
say farms of from fifty to a hundred acres of tilled land, 
there are 804,522. Of the labor performed on these, it is 

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture, page 28. 



BASIS FOR LANDED ARISTOCRACY. 353 

probable that fifty per cent, of it is done by hired laborers 
or wage workers. Of farms containing of cultivated land 
fifty acres and less, there are, all told, 670,954. These latter 
farms, it may be assumed, are chiefly cultivated by the occu- 
pant farmers. If the independence and prosperity of our agri- 
cultural population is of any moment, these figures demand 
immediate consideration. If 
)Q& It will thus be seen that of the 7,670,493 persons in our 
country engaged in agriculture, there are 1,024,601 who pay 
rent to persons not cultivating the soil; 1,508,828 capitalist 
or speculating owners, who own the soil and employ laborers ; 
804,522 of well-to-do farmers who hire part of their work 
or employ laborers, and 670,944 who may be said to actually 
cultivate the soil they own ; the rest are hired workers. 

Another fact must be borne in mind that a large number 
of the two million nine hundred and eighty-four thousand 
three hundred and six farmers who own land are in debt for 
it to money lenders. From the writer's observation it is prob- 
able that forty per cent, of them are so deeply in debt as to pay a 
rent in interest. This squeezing process is going on at the rate 
of eight and ten per cent., and in most cases can terminate but 
in one way. The ninety-two thousand two hundred and ten 
farms, which contain cultivated land of not less than five hun- 
dred acres, and running into the thousands, gives us an incipi- 
ent landed aristocracy of close on a hundred thousand persons. 
These large farms are rapidly increasing in number and in 
size. The bonanza farms of the West have been chiefly created 
from the railroad land grants, the speculating owners gradually 
buying out the small farmers on the alternate sections. On 
these farms everything possible is done by machinery. Hired 
laborers do the work for fifteen or twenty dollars per month 
for a few months, and seek odd jobs during the remainder of 
the year; they are fed in a barrack of a boarding house. 
Mr. Moody notices the absence of women and children and 
says : " In no case was the permanent residence of a family to 



354 TENURE IX THE UNITED STATES. 

be found upon them.* These large farms held by speculating 
owners are not confined to the West. Col. Church, of New 
York, collects the rent from one hundred and eighty farms, 
most of them large. Col. Murphy left an estate of two mil- 
lion acres. \The Standard Oil Company owns a million acres/) 
An Irishman owns in Illinois more than fifty thousand acres, 
and derives an income from it of about §100,000, and there 
are a number of others who already possess large landed estates. 
The one million four hundred and sixteen thousand six hun- I 
dred and eighteen holders of farms which contain cultivated land 
of over a hundred, and less than five hundred acres, while they 
include farms that may be cultivated by active farmers who 
employ some help, are, to a large extent, held by owners who, t 
so far as the great majority of them are concerned, cannot be 
considered laboring owners, but they are now, or soon will be, I 
in circumstances to live on income from the land without labor. J 
These form a large basis for a future aristocratic class. J^Jr 
Profiting by the loose modes of permitting the soil of fne 
country to go into the hands of speculators, the aristocrats of 
Europe have become landholders of great estates in this re- 
public. The Duke of Sutherland, as we have seen, is the 
largest landholder in Britain. He owns four hundred and 
twenty-five thousand acres in the United States. The Marquis 
of Tweedale has one million seven hundred and fifty thousand 
acres. Sir Edward Reid & Co. own about two million of acres 
in Florida. A Scotch company, made up largely of titled 
gentlemen, have half a million acres in that state. A similar 
English company owns three million of acres in Texas. At 
the present time some twenty millions of acres of the lands of 
these United States are held by alien holders, capitalists and 
noblemen, in farms or holdings of not less than fifty thousand 
acres each, not to mention a very large amount in holdings of 
a less acreage. The Mexican law was more provident than 

* Moody's Land and Labor, page 54. 



\ 



RENTING MIDDLEMEN. 355 

ours, for it prohibited alieu landholding. Such has been the 
pressure of late years, that large tracts even there have been 
and are going into the hands of capitalist holders, or they, at 
least, are getting some kind of an interest in them. 

In estimating the ownership of the productive land in the 
United States, it must not be forgotten that the large farms 
constitute no inconsiderable part of the whole, as it would take 
many small farms to equal one of the large ones. The small 
holders are changing from freeholders to renters and agricultural 
laborers. Another fact : there is a rapidly growing class of large 
labor employing renters or middlemen. By the census no less 
than twelve thousand three hundred and thirty-eight are re- 
ported as renting farms of cultivated land containing from five 
hundred to several thousand acres, and two hundred and 
seventy-nine thousand three hundred and sixty-five of these 
who rent from one hundred to five hundred acres of arable 
land.* These employ numbers of "agricultural laborers." 
Such figures are far from encouraging, if we are still to enter- 
tain the hope that American freemen are to be independent 
holders of the soil on which they place their feet. We have, 
at this time, almost as many tenant renters as there are in the 
British Islands. The very worst forms of renting and metayer 
tenancy prevail. We have no legislation to secure the rights 
of the renting cultivator, and none to induce or protect neces- 
sary agricultural improvements. Our whole land system has 
been nothing more than a piece of carelessly put together 
machinery, adapted to further the ends of land speculation. 
Besides, the amount sold for cash, or granted to states and 
corporations, the operations of the preemption and homestead 
laws have largely aided the transfer of public lands to other 
holders. The essential condition of republican independence 
through freeholding by the cultivators we have not secured, 
and have no means of securing. 

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture, page 29. 



356 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

So long as any public land remains, the power of the land- 
lord will not be supreme. In his remarks in the " Statistics 
of Agriculture/ 7 General Walker says, that " the amount of 
arable land still remaining subject to occupation under the 
homestead and preemption acts, is barely sufficient to meet 
the demand of settlers for a year or two to come." * What 
then ? Of those who must live by farming > not much less than 
half of the agricultural population will have neither land, nor 
money to buy it, and must make the best terms they can with 
landlords. Nothing but prompt and vigorous steps can save 
the republic from the endless mischief and inequality that will 
follow by the creation of an immense body of agricultural rent- 
ers and laborers subject and tributary to the land holding class. 
Sj^ In France, with an area about as large as one of our states, / 
/and a population on December 18th, 1881, of 37,672,048, ( 
/ Laveleye estimates not less than five million landed proprietors | 
' who own less than twenty acres. Of the population of France J 
by the Statesman's Year Book for 1885 nearly one-half live j 
by agriculture. Formerly the population of the United States 
was more rural or agricultural than it is to-day. By the census \ 
of 1880 we find that of males over ten years 14,744,942 are em- \ 
ployed in all occupations, and of these 7,075,983 in agriculture, f 
Mr. Mulhall, in his table showing the relative population of 
town and country in the United States, only counts those as 
urban who live in towns exceeding twenty thousand in popu- 
lation. Thus in 1800 the urban population was only six and 
four-tenths per cent, of the population. In 1820 it had fallen 
still lower, and was four and eight-tenths per cent, of the popu- 
lation ; in 1840 it was nine and one-tenth per cent., in 1860 it 
was thirteen and five-tenths per cent., and in 1880 eighteen and - 
two-tenths per cent, of the population. ;hf With the rapid in- 

* Introductory Kemarks to Statistics of Agriculture, Tenth Census, page ? 
xxviii. 

f Tenth Census, Statistics of Population, page 712. 
X Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, 1885, page 362. 



TENDENCY OF POPULATION TO CITIES. 357 

crease of city population that has been going on for the past 
thirty years as a guide, it is safe to say that in 1886 one-fifth 
of our entire population will live in cities of more than twenty 
thousand inhabitants, as compared with less than a twentieth 
some sixty years ago. There is also a very large population 
in towns of from three thousand to twenty thousand inhabitants, 
who are entirely detached from agricultural pursuits. 

In 1790 there was only six cities in the United States of 
from eight thousand to twelve thousand inhabitants. Now 
there are one hundred and ten of such cities, and in all two 
hundred and eighty-six cities running from eight thousand to 
upward of one million. The * city population in 1880 by 
this standard was twenty-two and a half per cent, of the entire 
population, and it certainly is twenty-five per cent. now. The 
fact thus appears that practically much more than half of our 
people live in the country. Country population is supposed to 
be the independent "bone and sinew " of the nation, and it is 
among this hitherto independent agricultural people that the 
changes which seriously affect their standing resources and 
power have been so rapidly going on. 

There are many causes which have led to the sale of farms 
by the original settlers to capitalist owners. The transition 
from a primitive and simple rural life to an artificial society 
has had much to do with it. Many will remember when the 
families on farms produced and manufactured the greater part 
of what they needed. The men worked in the field with com- 
paratively few implements of improved or expensive machinery. 
The women wove, spun, and made the clothing. I do not 
mean to say that there is not a great superiority in the modern 
appliances and clothing purchased in the city. The difficulty 
has been that many were unable fully to cope with the com- 
mercial responsibilities thus entailed on them. Above all, the 
temptation to run in debt has increased with the facility for 

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Population, Introduction, page xxix. 



358 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

getting into it. Eight, ten, and twelve per cent, interest on 
debts created for articles of luxury and machinery, much of 
which might be dispensed with, have ruined many a man. 
The capitalist stood ready to buy up the farm. Our people, 
too, have been blind to the danger. All thought there was 
" plenty of public land." If a man lost his farm, he could 
easily get another. The writer visited a large prairie with his 
father more than forty years ago. Only a few farms were then 
located round its edge. The bulk of it was at a later period 
sold under the graduation bill for some twelve and a half cents 
per acre. A few years ago, in traversing a lane running through 
this prairie for a number of miles, it was found to be all in 
enclosed farms of tillage, meadow or pasturage. On inquiry, 
the greater part of it had changed hands, some of it more than 
once. The prices had risen to forty, fifty, and in some cases 
eighty and one hundred dollars per acre. The improvements 
constituted only a small part of that valuation. About one- 
third of the farms were held by cultivating owners, the remain- 
der by renters. Some of the owners of the rented farms were 
in the county seats, some in St. Louis, and some lived "East." 
It is unfortunately the case that a great many of our people 
are not bound by strong local attachments. Many of them 
sell and move on the first good offer for their farms. 

It may be true that the reverses now reducing so many of 
our farmers to the condition of tenants and laborers are cal- 
amities for which the more fortunate are not to blame. It 
will be said that this impoverishment has been caused by indo- 
lence, extravagance and intemperance, and that this reduction 
of our agricultural workers from freeholders to dependents, 
while a calamity, is one for which the victims alone are re- 
sponsible. Although there are undoubtedly cases of miscon- 
duct and mismanagement, the writer is convinced that the 
evils are wide-spread, expanding and continuous, and spring 
from general causes which ought not to exist. Extravagant 
and intemperate people are not very common among agri- 



EXACTIONS FROM THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 359 

culturists. More of those two vices will be found in five per 
cent, of the people who live by their wits than in a hundred 
per cent, of the farming population. No classes are more in- 
tensely laborious than our working farmers. From daylight 
until dark their toil is heavy and unintermittent. When 
night comes most of them are too tired to read or enjoy them- 
selves. Their food, although wholesome and solid, is very 
plain, and their clothing far from luxurious. If their circum- 
stances are compared with those of the money-lender who 
shaves their notes, or even his agent, the contrast becomes 
painful.yCThe peculiar economy under which our American 
agriculturist labors, seems to be an experiment of competition 
between him and the ryots of India and the peasant farmers 
to the north of the Black Sea, as to which of them can lay 
down wheat at the lowest price in Liverpool. If fifty per 
cent, of the money the American wheat brings was not con- 
sumed by railroad managers and middlemen it would not be 
so hard for the farmer. His necessities frequently compel him 
to divide the little he receives with the usurer. He cannot 
compete at all when he pays high rent. He is often embar- 
rassed by obligations for "improved machinery," much of 
which is poorly made and comes to pieces before it is paid 
for ; to these must be added the heavy burden of taxes unjustly 
and improvidently heaped on him. His present fate leads us 
to imagine what will be his condition when all the public land 
is gone, and when there will be added, rent and rack-rent, 
constantly increased, to meet the luxury and extravagance of 
aristocratic landlords. 

The above causes are all leading to a system of land tenure 
that, with a great population, will be terrible for the working 
poor. One thing is certain, such a form of landholding and 
a free government cannot exist together. The question is 
whether we have nerve enough to correct such abuses in time, 
or shall " Land Monopoly " and " Land Speculation " be the 
epitaphs on the tomb of American liberty? 



4 



CHAPTER XII. 

CORPORATIONS. 

Unsatisfactory statistics of corporations — Corporations known to Roman 
law — Early town corporations — East India Company — Supposed legal 
powers of corporations — Plea of vested rights — A legislature cannot 
grant power that strips its successors of authority — Public and private 
companies — Corporations a subordinate power of the State — Eminent 
domain — Railroads public highways — A curious charter — Craftsmen 
employers and corporate employers — Money as an employer — Crafts, 
guilds and trades unions — William Pitt — Imaginary political necessity 
for cheap labor — Organization of capital in corporations — The organiza- 
tion of labor — John Stuart Mill on co-operation — Consolidation among 
the autocrats of transportation — Stocks, assets, liabilities and income of 
railroads — Miraculous expansion of capital under the fingering of corpo- 
rations — Revenues of railroad companies — A greater power than the 
State — Army of employees under direction of a few — National debts — 
Corporate debts greater than all public debts combined — Banking on the 
confidence plan — Dealers in money becoming jobbers in labor — The 
accumulated property in the country and who owns it — Piratical stock 
jobbing — Rights of individuals and powers of the State threatened by 
corporations. 

There is no subject of similar importance that has been so 
utterly neglected by statisticians and census-takers, as corpo- 
rations, beneficiary societies and companies. It is true that 
the Census Reports of the United States comprise enough on 
other subjects to appal the most heroic reader. We have the 
exact amount of humidity, in inches, that might, could, 
would or should fall on every square yard of the United 
States. The number of hens that cackle in American barn- 
yards, and the number of eggs that they ought to have laid, 
we know ; but as to the number of corporations, companies, soci- 
eties, associations, the extent of their capital, of their authority, 
360 



MYSTERIES OF INCORPORATED FINANCE. 361 

of their property, we do not know, and there does not at the 
present writing appear to be any way of finding out. A power 
lias grown up in our country, and become a great estate of the 
realm, claiming to be deputized to exercise some of the most 
questionable powers of government ; charged with owning and 
controlling to a large extent the legislative bodies of the 
country ; making laws and by-laws deeply affecting property 
rights and even the lives and safety of the people ; and yet 
their history, their real statistics, their ways and their works 
appear to be wrapped in impenetrable mystery. While we 
have tables giving the number of some kinds of corporations 
there is not a list, official or otherwise, of all the corporations, 
companies or organizations of men in the United States, or 
one that gives an accurate and comprehensive idea of their 
minal and real capital, much less of their inner secret history. 
In Poor's Manual we have the statistics the railroad companies 
choose to furnish to the public. From these we learn that at 
the close of 1884 there were 125,379 miles of railroads in the 
United States, of which 3977 were constructed during that 
year. The " share capital'' was $3,762,616,686 and the 
funded debt $3,669,115,772. The other forms of debt equalled 
$244,666,596. The total capital and indebtedness of all kinds 
aggregating $7,676,399,054.* No person would think for 
an instant of accepting this as a complete and honest statement 
of the real capital and debt of these roads. It only serves to 
deceive the public, in so far as they believe it, as does the state- 
ment on the same page that the cost of these roads per mile 
" measured by their stock and indebtedness equalled very nearly 
$61,400 per mile." Mr. Poor informs us of " securities being 
issued at the rate of two or three dollars for every dollar of cash 
I paid.^ He very properly adds in another place : " The country 
is now about its lowest depths as far as railroads are concerned." 
Besides the railroads we have insurance companies, nianu- 



* Poor's Manual for 1885, page 1. flbid., page 5. 

31 




362 CORPORATIONS. 

factnring companies, banking companies, telegraph companies, 
telephone companies, friendly societies with property and re- 
sponsibilities, lodges, charitable institutions incorporated and 
otherwise, trades unions, guilds, independent military organi- 
zations. These organized bodies we find everywhere. They 
absorb immense amounts of the national wealth, and they 
affect the individual prosperity to an extent we can hardly 
realize. 

Of a few of the less dangerous of these combinations, of a 
social and friendly character, which do not attempt to use 
their combined capital as a lever on the public, we have some 
little knowledge. However mysterious the ways of insurance, 
the statistics of insurance are to some extent before us, but 
even their modes of transacting business are far too incompre- 
hensible, especially their expenditures and investments, to be 
tolerated in such a class of institutions. The more powerful 
and wealthy corporations carry on their business largely on 
the " confidence " plan, their honest and exact statistics are not 
recorded. The very exhibits they make are only calculated 
to deceive. Without wishing to appear unduly suspicious 
there is something worse than mere mystery about them. 
Corporations are unduly sensitive, suffer from business mod- 
esty, and shrink from the public gaze. They do not permit 
their right hand to know what their left hand doeth. It is 
really astonishing that the state governments and Congress 
should not have insisted on a public record of their operations, 
in all matters even the most minute, that in any shape 
involves the public interests; in fact, there is no reason why 
their pecuniary and official history should not be exactly 
recorded and its data be public property. Statistical almanacs 
we have, but you may wade through them in vain to gather 
the exact facts in regard to corporations in the United States. 
The ponderous census does not pretend to give the statistics 
and history of these companies, and even, so far as concerns 
railroad companies, only gives a little of the outside data. 



ROMAN CORPORATIONS. 363 

We have a statistical bureau that is at once voluminous and 
mathematical, but lean and barren on the statistics of corpora- 
tions. The Statesman's Year Book does not give the facts, 
and you can only glean some superficial information such as 
the companies are willing that the public should possess. It 
gives the number of miles of railways built in all parts of the 
British Empire, and the amount of capital supposed to be 
absorbed by it, but the names or number of the companies, 
their liabilities, responsibilities and power we have not, and 
the record neither states nor pretends to state the business 
proceedings of these public corporations. Neither there nor in 
Mulhall can you find anything about the corporations of the 
United States, for the United States has furnished nothing 
official on that subject. It is true we have the Pacific rail- 
road reports, but they give us very little data, and the little 
they give seems to be, unhappily, too much for public cre- 
dence. 

Although incorporations are generally supposed to be a 
modern contrivance, dating their birth and growth during this 
century, such is not exactly the case. Incorporated companies 
were known to the Roman law, and, although differing as to 
their power and the modes of exercising it, from those of the 
present time, they still assumed sufficient authority to expose 
them to the hostility of the government. The early history 
of contracts is almost exclusively to be sought in the history 
of the Roman law, in the Roman " societes omnium bonor- 
um" * The equestrian or aristocratic class, when driven 
from official positions, organized business companies to control 
capital, and were the great contractors when corn and other 
largesses were bestowed upon the people. Whatever their 
vices were, and they were not destitute of them, they did not 
attempt, as modern incorporations do, after being created, to 
claim independence on the plea of vested rights. In England 

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 233. 



364 CORPORATIONS. 

in the Middle Ages, towns and cities received charters from 
the king, and thus became corporations with certain powers. 
The government of the city of London began under a charter 
from the king. Most of the cities and towns obtained govern- 
ments in a similar way. Although, at first, not very 
clearly defined, the powers of these city or town incorpora- 
tions were over matters purely local, and did not interfere 
with the authority of the general government. The purpose, 
however, of all such city and town corporations was of a pub- 
lic character and not private emolument. The most won- 
derful company, organized for private emolument was the 
British East India Company. When this corporation was 
originally chartered the design was to authorize it to carry 
on trade in the Indian seas. The company purchased a small 
quantity of land for a trading station on the East India coast, 
and from this beginning gradually conquered a large part of 
India. It exercised poAvers of all kinds, created companies 
and monopolies under it; usurped powers of government; 
taxed, levied armies, and did other objectionable things, as 
corporations are liable to do, until the British parliament 
made an end of it, " vested rights " to the contrary, notwith- 
standing, and assumed the government of India for itself. 

In our own day corporations have become so universal and 
domineering, have acquired, and are acquiring such author- 
ity and wealth that it is well to examine carefully into them, 
to see how far the powers they are exercising are con- 
sistent with the public good. According to the best legal 
authorities the following powers are assumed to belong to an 
incorporation. 1st : The power of perpetual succession. 2d : 
The power to sue and be sued, and to transact all business 
within the intent of the grant of power ; to have and use a 
common seal, and to make by-laws, not inconsistent with law, 
and in the strict line of their business. 3d : A corporation 
or company must strictly confine itself to its legitimate pow- 
ers ; thus, it is ultra vires for a bank company to build a rail- 



VESTED RIGHTS. 365 

road ; nor has a railroad company any authority to usurp 
any of the functions of a bank, and neither of them have the 
slightest authority to assume any municipal function, or to 
determine any question which is within the province of the 
courts. 4th : A corporation in this country is a subordinate 
part of a state government, a creature of a state government. 
It has been claimed that the general government has nothing 
to do with them, but in so far as Congress received, by the 
Constitution, the power to regulate commerce between the 
states, all corporations are to that extent subject to its juris- 
diction, and can be perfectly governed in all matters of inter- 
state commerce by such authority. 5th : Every company or 
corporation, whether by general law or special charter made 
amenable or not, is subject to the powers of the state. It is 
the creature of the state, created only on the supposition that 
it was for the benefit of the public interests, and liable to be 
changed, altered, amended or abolished by the state. 

One of the dangerous pleas or claims of powerful modern 
corporations is that they acquire certain vested property rights 
by the expenditure of their money under their charters, and 
that the state or general government can pass no law at vari- 
ance with their interests. If there was the slightest foundation 
for such an impudent claim, charters should never have been 
granted, and, in fact, never could have been given ; for the 
constitution of a state confers on no general assembly that may 
happen to meet under it the power to part with the authority 
granted to the legislature as a successive body. Such things 
have been attempted more than once. For instance, the par- 
liament of Ireland had power to meet and enact laws for Ire- 
land. Each successive parliament, as elected, had power to 
pass laws or to modify or repeal any law of a previous parlia- 
ment, but one of these assemblages had no power to abolish 
parliament. Thus the act of the Irish parliament, brought 
about by English influence or English corruption, abolishing 
the Irish parliament, was in excess of its powers. They took 



366 CORPORATIONS. 

away from the people the power to elect a succeeding parlia- 
ment, which was a power superior to their own. No one 
would pretend that a state legislature could abolish the state 
government by an act, or strip the legislative assemblies that 
were to succeed it of a single one of the powers delegated to it 
by the constitution. In the same way, while corporations are 
creatures of and subordinate parts of a state government, there 
never can be constitutionally given to them a power or privi- 
lege which the same power cannot take from them. A town 
government is an incorporation, and it has been customary for 
legislative bodies, they being competent, to grant to such cer- 
tain powers and privileges. Thus the authorities incorporated 
may be authorized to issue licenses to sell liquors, or to burden 
the people with certain debt, or to make a specific disposition 
of all or portions of the public property, but no lawyer will 
pretend that the legislative body which granted such powers 
may not modify or withdraw them. What most of our great 
and unscrupulous corporations want to do is to have all the 
independence of a private person, and, also, all the power of a 
public corporation ; nevertheless, they are mere creatures of 
the law. 

There are private companies with none of the powers of a 
corporation. A, B and C enter into company to make hats, 
and transact their business just as John Smith would do. 
Like an individual, they are subject in every particular to the 
law, whatever it may be. The law may even change some of 
the conditions under which they make hats. Congress, by a 
modification of the tariff, may render it impossible for them 
to continue in business; or the state legislature, by taxation, or 
some enactment in the general interest, may seriously embar- 
rass them. Yet, if A, B and C should insist that they put 
their money in the hat trade with the understanding that the 
former conditions would continue, that their business is being 
sacrificed by this change, that these laws should not affect 
them, that they are in violation of their " vested rights," 



EMINENT DOMAIN. 367 

and that if such legislation must be persisted in, Congress or 
the legislature should pay damages to them, everybody would 
laugh at them. A, B and C are not authorized to " make 
by-laws " any more than John Smith, who might, it is true, 
write a string of moral maxims and paste them in his hat 
for reference, but they would have no more authority than 
he choose to give to them. A, B and C cannot condemn and 
appraise, and take possession of the shoe shop adjoining, to 
make an extension necessary for the business of their own 
hat shop ; neither can they run the wagons that deliver their 
hats over the garden or field of P or Q. A railroad corpora- 
tion gets that power on the theory that the railroad is a public 
highway. The state grants this pow r er to the corporation, a 
subordinate public authority under it, — a creature and weapon 
of the legislature. If any one wants to know how the state 
got that power, the reply is that it gets it on the theory of 
" eminent domain." That was the theory on which William 
the Conqueror seized and disposed of the lands of England. 
After the battle of Hastings he claimed to be " the state." 
Now, whatever the merits of the doctrine of "eminent do- 
main " may be, and they will be discussed hereafter, there is, 
of course, no just comparison between a state that properly 
represents the people, and William the Conqueror. I refer 
to it merely because the legal system that partially governs 
us originated then. Eminent domain was eminently obnox- 
ious to the Anglo-saxon ideas. It was quite as obnoxious to 
the Anglo-saxon nobles, as it was to the Anglo-saxon people, 
for each of the former wanted the eminent domain himself. 
Under the system as it has grown up among us, the state is 
the supreme owner of the land. A state may tax the land to 
any extent it may require, or it may condemn any portion of 
it for public use. In this latter case equity requires the state 
to indemnify the individual, and this should always be de- 
termined judicially; but while this has been conceded, it does 
not affect, under the doctrine of eminent domain, the right or 



368 CORPORATIONS. 

power of the state to tax it two or one hundred cents on the 
dollar, or, in other words, to take it all. 

The doctrine of eminent domain, when you come to exam- 
ine it as a legal proposition, is an assertion that the state is 
the primal and highest owner of the land, and that the indi- 
vidual has only limited and denned rights in it, which may 
be regulated by law. This has always been the theory of 
our land system, and is substantially Mr. Henry George's 
platform. So thoroughly has this been systematized and recog- 
nized in the history of our government, that when a new state 
is admitted into the Union, carved out of the public domain 
of the United States, it is customary to have what is styled 
an ordinance or contract between the new state and the United 
States, by which the new state agrees not to tax the lands 
lying within its boundaries belongiug to the United States, 
until the United States has disposed of them. For this re- 
linquishment a consideration is given, being usually two sec- 
tions of land for school purposes, in each township, and, as 
the general law stands, five hundred thousand acres for inter- 
nal improvements, and additional amounts for universities, 
agricultural colleges and normal schools. In these agree- 
ments the power of the state to tax is affirmed, and also the 
doctrine that the " eminent domain " is in the state, and not 
in the general government. Over the territories Congress 
exercises a proprietary right, under that clause of the Consti- 
tution authorizing it to " make all needful rules and regula- 
tions for the territory and other property of the United 
States." This clause, by the bye, has been stretched a good 
deal, and it is a very grave question, considered judicially, 
whether the assertion of "eminent domain" over the territo- 
ries can bo constitutionally maintained. Every one will under- 
stand that such a power as "eminent domain" cannot exist in 
two authorities at once. It has been the practice of our 
government to recognize that a state in the Union, once cre- 
ated, by virtue of its existence, possessed the eminent domain, 



RAILEOADS PUBLIC HIGHWAYS. 369 

and the United States does not relinquish and convey to it 
that authority which is alone supposed to be derived from the 
people, but, on the contrary, the federal government comes to 
it on the threshold of its existence and seeks to make a bar- 
gain with it, that it shall not, for a certain period, tax federal 
property in land within the state, and pays a part of this 
property in land to the state for such exemption. The reader 
must carefully bear in mind the distinction between the pro- 
prietary right and the "eminent domain." The "eminent 
domain " is the highest title. Subordinated to it is the proprie- 
tary title, and thus, under the theory of our system, the high- 
est and first title to all the land of the state is in the people 
of the state, and the proprietorship under it a limited one, sub- 
ject to legal regulation. 

In this way an incorporated railway company secures from 
the state the authority to build a railroad across the lands of 
any man, without allowing him to say what shall be the width 
of the tract, the direction it shall take, or fix the price of his 
own property. The machinery furnished by law for securing 
remuneration for damages, or property so taken, is rarely of 
a kind to insure any exorbitant price ; usually, the amount 
allowed is far less than the individual owner would like to sell 
such land for, if the matter was regulated by " supply and 
demand," and in many cases the amount paid is entirely 
inadequate. The theory largely is that the building of such a 
road is a matter of public interest, and that heavy damages 
should not stand in the way of the enterprise. A railroad is 
a public highway. It is on this theory alone that it has been 
or could have been built. In the charter there is merely dele- 
gated to the corporation a certain public function. Many 
people think this should never have been done. In several 
European states the government practically controls the rail- 
roads. It will at once be seen that when a corporation puts 
its money in a public highway called a railroad, it does not 
thereby secure an independent power or right to continue to 



370 CORPORATIONS. 

exercise a public function. So far as it exercises any authority, 
it is a delegated power, limited as to time and everything else 
connected with it, and subordinate to the interests and will of 
the people. It is not to be supposed that the law or the people 
will deal inequitably by any interest, but it will never do to 
permit corporations to call in question the right of the public 
to regulate, modify or abolish the corporations it has created. 
Vested interests and rights are always subordinate to public 
interests and rights. The claim, often impudently made, that 
by investing money in a public highway, called a railroad, the 
managers acquire a vested right to regulate and manage it, 
independent of the law-making power of the people, is not 
to be tolerated for a moment. The people, and by the people 
we mean the law-making power, may permit a company, for 
the time being, to manage the road with as little interference 
as possible, but that is always merely a toleration, on the pre- 
sumption that they are performing the duty well for the 
public interests ; but the power always remains with the 
people to resume the functions they have delegated. 

Corporations, when created, have never hesitated to extend 
and magnify their powers, or to usurp functions not belonging 
to them. One company, that afterward filled a large place 
in railroad enterprises, was originally chartered by the legis- 
lature of the state of Pennsylvania, to " Irrigate and plant 
vineyards in California, or in any other state or territory of 
the United States, except Pennsylvania." Finding California 
an unsatisfactory field they purchased or negotiated for a rail- 
road charter in Kansas, from a company that did not possess 
the authority to make such a sale, and proceeded forthwith to 
build what is now one of the important roads of the country. 
A town company succeeded in getting a bill through a terri- 
torial legislature, authorizing it to purchase, lay out in lots, 
and sell two thousand acres of public land, when an Act of 
Congress forbid the sale of more than three hundred and 
twenty acres for such a purpose. Companies have been organ- 



TRADESMEN AS EMPLOYERS. 371 

ized to manufacture salt, and after starting manufacture in one 
locality, have acquired salt lands elsewhere with no iutention 
of making salt there, but simply to prevent any one else from 
making it, they thus create a monopoly. 

Officers of railroad companies are continually intriguing to 
get possession of the coal lands of the country, and to so 
arrange the freights on coal as to create a monopoly for their 
friends, to the public detriment. Salt and petroleum interests 
are sought to be monopolized in the same way, and unless 
prompt steps are taken to check it, the country will be, before 
many years, at the mercy of a few monopolists, who will be 
able to control the price of fuel, salt and petroleum. Organ- 
ized capital, under a company or corporation, managed by 
officers, if it exist at all, ought always to be a subordinate 
public authority. This organization and aggregation of capital 
has brought about one of the greatest revolutions, aifecting 
human labor, in modern times. In England, until recently, 
a master workman or employer was required to be a thorough 
craftsman himself. Usually a thriving handicraftsman who 
had acquired credit or means to carry on business was the 
employer. He thoroughly understood the details of his own 
work, was in full sympathy with his workmen, was a member 
of a guild or trades union, and subject to its regulations, 
which were made for the good of the trade. In England, in 
the last century, the woolen manufactures were carried on by 
small masters, often in their own houses, at times cultivating 
a garden or patch of land, which, besides air and exercise, 
furnished many cheap comforts. A careful inquirer states 
that in 1806 there were about three thousand five hundred of 
such small manufacturers in the vicinity of Leeds.* As a 
rule there was one apprentice with the master for every two or 
three workmen. The way was then opened for any good 
workman to become a master or employer. A young work- 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 105. 



372 CORPORATIONS. 

man of good repute could always get credit for enough wool 
to start him as a small master.* The introduction of ma- 
chinery in 1790 was the first thing that worked a change in 
the condition of the small employers, and a more radical and 
worse change was made, when, instead of the master or 
employer being a handicraftsman, the employer was simply a 
capitalist, or worse yet, a company of capitalists. With all 
their abuses craft guilds maintained a number of regulations 
which protected workingmen. The overthrow of the guilds 
was due to the rise of large capital and its investment in 
manufacture.f Trades' unions are the successors of the guilds. 
Under the old guild regulations no person was to " exercise a 
trade/' or could be a master employer unless he had served a 
seven years' apprenticeship at the trade. No journeyman was 
permitted to work with a man who had not so served, or who 
was not a member of the guild. J The usurpation by organized 
capital of the functions of a master tradesman, manufacturer 
and head craftsman, was one of the important levers to press 
the mechanic and laboring man into the dust. Many who had 
formerly been masters became wage workmen forever. Most 
of the avenues by which a mechanic and craftsman could ele- 
vate himself to an independent position were closed. The 
mere capitalist employer is a modern invention, separating em- 
ployer and workman. It will be argued that the introduction 
of machinery in manufacture and the arts, requires greater 
capital than the old master workmen had or could get. It 
has also been argued by one school of political economists that 
the true theory was to manufacture the largest amount at the 
smallest cost, so that buyers could get things cheap. In this 
way the capitalist employer very soon got in the habit of 
employing children and apprentices. The journeymen were 
always the first men discharged. Competition grew up among 
these capitalist employers as to who could sell cheapest. This 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 106. 

t Ibid., page 97. £ Ibid. 



WILLIAM PITT ON ARBITRATION. 373 

competition reduced mechanics and workmen to poverty. The 
mere capitalist employer knew little of, and cared less, for the 
workman. His purpose was to sell cheap, whatever became 
of the mechanics. He was independent of the trade. It 
was not his business to employ the finest skilled artisans. 
Shoddy, poorly made-up articles, cheap workmen, low wages, 
these are often the stock in trade of the capitalist employer. 
If a competing corporation or firm sell articles at a low rate, 
he must grind down his laborers and sell his goods at the same 
price. Beside the disastrous effects of this system on the regular 
crafts and trades, poor needlewomen make shirts for a few half- 
pence, and other articles of clothing for a pittance that cannot 
keep soul and body together, in order that Mr. A may under- 
sell Mr. B, and one factory has to curtail the wages of its 
workmen and workwomen in order that it may compete with 
some other company that has put the price down. It may be 
said that there is no safe way to prevent this, and that 
unbridled and unregulated competition must be permitted to 

jo on, reducing the workingmen and workingwomen to poverty. 

me of the most eminent British statesmen, William Pitt, as 
will be seen by examining the debates of the British House 
of Commons, when the Arbitration Act was pending, said : 
" The time will come when manufacturers will Wve been so 
long established, and the operatives not having any other 
business to flee to, that it will be in the power of any one 
man in a town to reduce wages, and all the other manufacturers 
must follow. If it ever does arrive at that pitch, parliament, 
if not sitting, should be called together, and if it cannot 
redress these grievances, your power is at an end." 

While corporations in the present day are created and de- 
veloped largely in the interest of aggregated capital, it is 
worthy of note that corporations and guilds a few centuries 
ago, were aggregations and associations for the defense and 
protection of labor. These labor-protecting corporations are, 
indeed, the oldest known associations of men among European 

S2i 



374 CORPORATIONS. 

nations. Guild is supposed to be of ancient Celtic etymol- 
ogy.* Religious guilds, which were partly political, and 
partly to organize and strengthen poor people, were almost 
contemporaneous with Christianity. The beginning of craft 
or trade guilds was from the commencement of the eleventh 
to the middle of the thirteenth centuries.f Town corporations 
or governments were still older, and were largely created to 
resist the freebooting nobles. The guilds succeeded generally 
in securing authority to regulate trade instead of the officers 
of the towns. These two kinds of organization and authority 
were sometimes in conflict, but as they both derived their 
power substantially from the people, they operated as a check 
upon each other. The purpose of the guild organization 
of any particular craft, was to promote the interest and in- 
dependence of that craft. The soul of the craft guilds was 
their meeting every week, month or quarter. The control of 
the sale, of the most necessary provisions, such as bread, meat, 
drink and fuel, was the special care of the town corporations. 
The guild of each trade or manufacture regulated the produc- 
tion of articles, the prices, mode of sale, and had laws to pre- 
vent imperfectly educated workmen from being employed to 
the detriment of those who had served regular apprentice- 
ships. The^uild sometimes forbid its members from carrying 
on their trade with borrowed capital,! so jealous were they of 
the interference of capital with their occupation. At Tournay, 
in 1365, it became necessary to forbid usurers from carrying 
on the weaving trade. The incomes of the craft guilds were 
derived from small entrance fees of wax for the churches and 
taxes which were levied for special purposes as they occurred, 
such as to provide for the death, misfortunes, or pilgrimage 
of a member.§ 

If a master workman withheld wages from a workman the 

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 232. 

f Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 55. 

X Ibid., page 74. I Ibid., page 64. 



GUILDS AND TRADES UNIONS. 375 

guild compelled him to pay. They only permitted a certain 
number of apprentices for so many journeymen. In England 
they had more power in regulating wages than the judges 
of the court of sessions, although the latter were backed by 
Act of parliament. In all the manufacturing countries of 
Europe, the most ancient guilds were the weavers. In Ger- 
many, the wool weavers guild rose to consideration early in 
the eleventh century. One of the oldest German charters, 
referring to craft guilds, was granted 1149. A fraternity 
was formed with the consent of the judges, sheriffs and alder- 
men, and henceforth all within the town who wished to carry 
on the trade were obliged to join the society.* 

In Germany and * France the working classes were com- 
pletely organized for defense, and the welfare of their trades. 
In many parts of Germany guilds existed until this century. 
In the fourteenth century we have evidence of organized 
strikes among the workmen, and enactments against them, 
referring causes of dispute between employers and workmen 
to the guilds for adjudication. Various causes are assigned 
as the reason for the decline and overthrow of the guilds. 
Complaints were made that abuses crept in, and that in many 
cases they Were used to advance selfish interests. In 1484, 
the Emperor Sigismund complains that membership had to 
be l: grossly bought," f and that in the town council " the 
crafts followed only their own advantage." He recommended 
their abolition. The imperial decrees in Germany against the 
guilds were rarely carried out, as the guilds supported each 
other. J Henry VIII., of England, who had previously stripped 
the churches of their property, in his expiring days, under 
pretense of holy zeal, robbed and stripped the guilds of their 
property. 

Such were some of the causes that led to the decline of the 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 52. 

f Ibid., page 75. % Hid., page 81. 



376 CORPORATIONS. 

guilds ; but the chief cause of their overthrow was the accu- 
mulation of large capital, aud its investment in manufactures.* 
For a time the guilds struggled against that potent enemy, 
" capital/' taking refuge in and using the religious guilds or 
societies to secure immunity. Upon the final overthrow of 
guilds, trades unions took their place. The guild had pos- 
sessed ancient forms. Its meetings were a species of feasts. 
They possessed, or claimed a religious element, and they were 
long recognized as corporate authorities of some standing. 
The trades unions referred merely to the trades and the crafts- 
men. As the transition in business established capital as the 
master, that master, whether an individual or company, was 
not required to be, and, in fact, rarely was, a member of the 
trades union. Capitalist employers usually denounced them. 
The committees of the House of Commons were not favorable 
to the " trades institutions." The followers of such move- 
ments were usually spoken of as " poor deluded wretches," 
and in a parliamentary report of 1806, one great fault of 
such a society # was said to be : " That its inevitable result 
would be progressive rise in wages of all kinds of workmen." f 
Adam Smith, who did not much favor parliamentary regula- 
tion, said : " Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the 
differences between master and workmen, its counselors are 
always the masters." In point of fact, the first legislation of 
a definite character in England was enacted for the purpose of 
reducing wages. The great plague of 1348, and the consequent 
depopulation, brought the interests and conflicts of the labor- 
ers and employers to a crisis. Even the clergy took advantage 
of it to raise their fees for masses aud prayers. Merchants 
and traders proceeded to raise the price of their wares, and the 
workingmen endeavored to secure a general rise of wages. This 
led to the notorious statute of laborers (23d and 25th King Ed- 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 99. 
t Parliamentary Eeport of 1806, page 113. 



CHEAP LABOR AS A POLICY. 377 

ward III.), in which it was ordained that no workman should 
take more, or employer pay more than they did before the 
plague. 

While the purpose of the enactments which fixed or 
provided for fixing the price of wages, was to prevent the 
rise of wages, when the change from employers who were 
handicraftsmen to capitalist employers took place, the work- 
men sought the protection of the law to prevent the reduction 
of wages. Added to the natural cupidity of capitalist employ- 
ers who had little intercourse with or sympathy for the work- 
men, the sharp competition of manufacturers and their desire 
to undersell, became a continual menace to wages. The desire 
to be able to sell a garment for four shillings that had been pro- 
duced and sold for five was constantly tending to lower prices, 
and the manufacturer who reduced the rate of wages might say 
with some plausibility that he could not afford to pay his 
workmen more. Added to this, in Great Britain, there grew 
up from all these changes a condition of affairs that might 
almost be styled a public policy. A large manufacturing and 
city population, constantly increasing, at this time nearly two- 
thirds of the empire, has to be supported from bread and meat 
not produced in the country. To meet this foreign expendi- 
ture, it was indispensable that they should find a foreign 
market for their manufactures. To do this the articles must 
be sold cheaper, and in this way the necessities of a public 
policy were added to private cupidity as a reason for the 
reduction of wages. It is still an unsolved problem how long 
a nation can continue to grow* on a very limited area, with a 
large population, constantly growing, the fundamental basis 
of its existence being that other nations shall furnish them raw 
products in exchange for manufactured articles. Political econo- 
mists will hardly deny that a nation which attempts to exist by 
shipping raw products and buying with the proceeds the manu- 
factures of other countries, " tends to poverty and the degrada- 
tion of its people." How long new countries will be found thus 



378 CORPORATIONS. 

to support a purely manufacturing nation, is for Great Britain 
a grave question. Her advantages are great accumulations 
of capital, which have been able to some extent to control the 
purchasing power of money, and this power holds the manu- 
facturing interest of Britain in its grasp. British capital plays 
the usurer to all the world, deriving great revenues from 
interest. England has also the advantage of performing a 
large proportion of the carrying trade of the world, and thus 
is able to turn exchange in her favor. To these may be added 
cheap labor as a necessity, viewed from the economic stand- 
point of capital. Valuable improvements in machinery can 
give little advantage to any one nation in contradistinction 
to others, for more than one nation has contributed improve- 
ments that give power to labor and facilities to trade ; in any 
event these useful inventions soon become general property. 
Cheap labor and the concentrated influence of capital, directed 
by a few, cannot in the end maintain a prosperous people. 
We find that as capital became the employer of workmen, 
repressive laws began to be enacted against combinations 
of workmen, mechanics institutes and trades unions. Bren- 
tano says, " The workmen having fallen into great distress 
owing to capitalized masters instead of workingmen masters, 
ihey petitioned parliament in 1778 for a legal regulation of 
wages." * The Act 13th, George III., c. 68, provided that 
on demand being made the price of wages was to be # established. 
Other acts about the same time contained similar provisions. 
It will be observed, however, that as the guilds had been 
driven out of existence, the new'law gave the mechanics insti- 
tutes and trades unions no voice in determining the price of 
labor. Besides the reduction of wages there were many other 
abuses from which the mechanics and workingmen suffered. 
The calico printing trade capitalist employers used apprentices 
almost exclusively, and the few skilled journeymen they 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 118. 



WAGES REGULATED BY LAW. 379 

employed were discharged on the slightest stagnation or pres- 
sure.* The frame- work knitting trade had formed a society 
in 1663, but from 1740 to" 1750, the trade being controlled 
largely by capitalist employers, was so overstocked by " bread- 
less apprentices " from the parish, who had served their time, 
that it brought the workmen very near starvation. It is 
stated that there was often but one coat in a shop which was 
worn by the workmen in turn as each of them went out. A 
Northamptonshire master named Moss refused to employ a 
workman possessed of a good coat, declaring that the best 
workmen were only to be found in ragged ones.f About the 
close of the last century and the beginning of the present, as 
capitalist owners began to have control of trade and manu- 
factures, laws were enacted against " combinations of work- 
men." In 1800, by Acts 39th and 40th, King George III., 
c. 106, all such combinations were prohibited, and penalties 
were provided punishing violations of the law. The working- 
men felt their helpless condition, and by meetings and monster 
petitions endeavored to influence parliament. The employers 
and business corporations and companies entered into the con- 
flict with them. Brentano says that in 1803 they spent twelve 
thousand pounds petitioning and presenting their case to parlia- 
ment.! It must be remembered that the laboring men in Britain 
did not vote, and, in fact, some of them do not vote even at 
this date. Beside positive hostile legislation, the trades unions 
and mechanics institutes were treated with ridicule. A set 
of flippant and reckless writers and would-be political econo- 
mists denounced every scheme for the elevation of the work- 
ingman as "agrarian," or "Utopian." Capital, organized, 
and under a system of partnerships, companies and corpora- 
tions, became all powerful. A few men give direction and 
power to vast sums of money, and are able to wield even 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 123. 

t Ibid., page 116. J Ibid., page 111. 



380 CORPORATIONS. 

greater power by an artificial and colossal system of credit. 
Modern corporations give organization to capital. These 
multiply its power, and the laborers are denied the privilege 
of organization for defense. If corporations, organizations and 
companies are needed for anything, surely they are needed to 
protect and maintain the value of labor. It is fashionable to 
denounce labor organizations, however. A cold-blooded school 
of political economists have grown up who hold that such 
organizations interfere with the laws of trade, and that every- 
thing, the price of labor included, must be subject to the cruci- 
ble of business competition. According to these the cheapest 
mode of production is the only excellence, and all organized 
efforts to raise or maintain the wages of craftsmen, mechanics, 
and laborers, are dangerous interferences with the natural laws 
of trade. 

When political economists preach the doctrine of " compe- 
tition " to a skilled mechanic who finds himself unable to 
support his family from the wages paid him, they forget the 
circumstances of the skilled mechanic. His craft is his stock 
in trade. In England, and to a great extent in America, he 
cannot, in a period of distress, take refuge in the ancient and 
natural occupation of agriculture. The land has all been 
monopolized by landlords. Even tenants' leases have be- 
come a sort of monopoly.. " He cannot dig, to beg he is 
ashamed." What is free competition between masters and 
workmen to him ? He is, indeed, entirely at the mercy of 
the capitalist employer. Capital is organized, the laborer 
is not. 

Under these circumstances an impartial reader will easily see 
the necessity of organization to protect the interests of labor. 
In union there is strength. If we are to have corporations, 
companies, associations, institutes, partnerships, at all, let them 
by all means be organizations for the benefit of workingmen. 
Such were many of the early corporations. Town and city 
corporations in the Middle Ages were for the protection of 



MILL ON ASSOCIATION OF LABOR. 381 

the burgesses, artisans, mechanics and laborers in the towns, 
against the armed aristocracy. They it was who abolished 
villeinage, and wrung Magna Charta from King John. The 
privileged orders were always opposed to such organizations. 
They ridiculed and satirized Watt Tyler and Jack Cade, who 
merely strove to make freemen of the enslaved yeomen of 
England. They scoff at their memory to-day as socialists and 
levelers. 

The highest and perhaps the only legitimate use for cor- 
porations is to concentrate and systematize the influence of 
workingmen. To make them so strong that their dictum 
shall be felt, and, if necessary, to derive lawful authority for 
certain legitimate actions and procedures. John Stuart Mill 
says : " Hitherto there has been no alternative for those who 
lived by their labor, but that of laboring either each for 
himself alone or for a master. But the civilizing and im- 
proving influences of association, and the efficiency and econ- 
omy of production on a large scale, may be obtained without 
dividing the producers into two parties, with hostile interests 
and feelings, the many who do the work being mere servants 
under the command of the one who supplies the funds, and 
having no interest of their own in the enterprise, except to 
earn their wages with as little labor as possible." 

" The speculations and discussions of the past fifty years, 
and the events of the last ten, are abundantly conclusive on 
this point." * * * « That the relations of masters and work- 
people will be gradually superseded by partnerships in one of 
two forms ; temporarily, and, in some cases, association of 
the laborers with the capitalist ; in other cases, and, perhaps, 
finally in all, association of laborers among themselves." * 
Speaking of several successful associations, he remarks : " The 
vitality of these associations must indeed be great to have 
enabled about twenty of them to survive not only the anti- 

* Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii., page 352. 



382 CORPORATIONS. 

socialist reaction, which for the time discredited all attempts 
to enable work-people to be their own employers, but the trying 
condition of financial and commercial affairs from 1854 to 
1858. * * * Of the prosperity attained by some of them, even 
while passing through this difficult period, I have given ex- 
amples which must be conclusive to all minds as to the bril- 
liant future reserved for the principle of co-operation." * As 
an additional argument in favor of the management of manu- 
facturing establishments by the workmen, Mr. Mill says: 
"Capitals of the requisite magnitude, belonging to single 
owners, do not, in most countries, exist in the needful abund- 
ance, and would be still less numerous if the laws favored the 
diffusion instead of the concentration of property ; " and fur- 
ther : " It is most undesirable that all these improved pro- 
cesses, and those means of efficiency and economy in production 
which depend on the possession of large funds, should be 
monopolized in the hands of a few rich individuals." f 

It will be observed that Mr. Mill admits law ought to favor 
the " diffusion " rather than the concentration of capital, and 
that it is not in the public interest that manufacturing and 
commercial business should be in the hands of a few rich men. 
It will be conceded that association is powerful, and while 
there may be a grave question as to the expediency of permit- 
ting capital to organize and acquire corporate powers, and to 
concentrate its strength, there can be little question about 
permitting industrial laborers and craftsmen to organize for 
the better protection of the interests of labor. Nearly every- 
thing that has been accomplished in elevating the people of 
modern Europe was brought about by organization and co- 
operation. A tyrant, whether he be a landed aristocrat, or a 
money-controlling capitalist, can always manage and use poor 
laborers if he can take them individually. It is when they 

* Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii., page 371. 
| Ibid., page 5] 0. 



CAPITAL ORGANIZED UNDER CHARTERS. 686 

are aggregated in guilds, trades unions, associations or insti- 
tutes that they become powerful. Of course, these are liable 
to abuses like all societies, companies or corporations, but 
that is no argument against the legitimate exercise of their 
powers. 

In modern times corporate franchises, as they are granted and 
carried on, are chiefly for the benefit of capitalists, or those 
who direct capital. Banking, insurance, railroad and large 
commercial and manufacturing corporations are all intended 
to give greater power and greater profit to accumulated capital. 
At the present time the tendency is to concentration, and 
the absorption of small enterprises by great concerns. A few 
rich and powerful railroad men practically control the trans- 
portation of the country. Nearly all of these made their 
enormous wealth by combinations to put up and down prices, 
watering stocks and other operations that ought to have been 
under the ban of penal law long ago. If it could be possible 
to obtain statistics to show us just how much fairly earned 
cash was actually put in railroad enterprises, and how much 
of what is styled their "stocks, assets, liabilities, mortgages 
and indebtedness " is an artificial creation, the lesson would be 
very instructive. Meagre although the reports of the tenth 
census are, they inform us that there are one thousand one 
hundred and sixty-five railroad companies which report an 
aggregate capital stock (paid in) amounting to two billion six 
hundred and thirteen million six hundred and six thousand 
two hundred and sixty-four dollars.* Poor's Manual for 
1885, states that the share capital for 1884, equalled three 
billion seven hundred and sixty-two million six hundred and 
sixteen thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars. f This 
sum, much larger than the national debt, we can hardly realize 
as being invested in railroads, by Americans, in little more 

* Compendium of Tenth Census, part 2d, page 1264. 
| Poor's Railroad Manual for 1885, page 1. 



384 CORPORATIONS. 

than half a century. Upon this, by the census report of 
1880, there is a funded debt of two billion three hundred and 
ninety million nine hundred and fifteen thousand four hundred 
and two dollars, and a debt not funded of four hundred and 
twenty-one million two hundred thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-four dollars, in all obligations incurred outside of stock 
amounting to two billion six hundred and sixty-one million 
one hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred and ninety- 
six dollars.* The figures given by Mr. Poor, for 1884, are a 
funded debt of three billion six hundred and sixty-nine mil- 
lion one hundred and fifteen thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-two dollars, and of other forms of debt, two hundred 
and forty-four million six hundred and sixty-six thousand 
five hundred and ninety-six dollars. The aggregate of liabil- 
ities against these enterprises is, according to Mr. Poor, seven 
billion six hundred and seventy-six million three hundred 
and ninety-nine thousand and fifty-four dollars, f or, if we are 
to believe the managers of these concerns, they have expended 
on them seven billion six hundred and seventy-six million 
three hundred and ninety-nine thousand and fifty-four dollars. 
Nobody believes anything of the kind, however. The amount 
of stock that was actually paid in honestly, dollar for dollar, 
would constitute a very small item, and, if to it was added 
the amount of money honestly borrowed on mortgage and" 
honestly expended for the road, we would have a true aggre- 
gate of what these roads cost. From the figures the compa- 
nies furnish us should be deducted all stocks not actually 
paid ; all money borrowed that was not honestly expended on 
the road, so as to add to its productive value, and all watered 
stock, bonuses, amounts paid for pretended services or other 
modes of pensioning their own officials. In point of fact, 
railroads have borrowed the corporate dignity and authority 

* Compendium of Tenth Census, part 2d, page 1260. 
t Poor's Manual for Railroads for 1885, page 1. 



WATERING MORTGAGES. 



385 



of the state, only to be better able to plunder the public, and 
rob the honest stockholders, where there are any. The figures 
they furnish give no idea of the amount actually raised for 
and expended on these roads. One branch of the Union 
Pacific Railway, for instance, let a contract to build a consid- 
erable portion of its road for thirty-three thousand three hun- 
dred and thirty-three dollars per mile, when it is notorious 
that the road could have been, if it was not, built for about 
eleven thousand dollars per mile. The government had en- 
dorsed and become responsible for bonds to the extent of 
sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars per mile, 
and the company was authorized to issue a preferred mortgage 
to the same extent, which should come in as a lien ahead of 
the government, these two together making the amount 
for which the road was nominally constructed. What was 
done with the stock, if any of it was ever really paid in, does 
not appear, further than as it exists among the " liabilities " 
of the company, and among other " obligations," which to- 
gether amount to upward of sixty thousand dollars a mile, a 
pretty big stone to be tied around the neck of any enterprise. 
We have omitted to mention a land grant of some twenty or 
twenty-five sections per mile, the value of which would not 
be overstated at one thousand dollars each ; the sale of these 
does not seem to have had the effect of reducing the volume of 
its obligations. In truth, what is called "stock" is, to a large 
extent, fictitious. The leading telegraph company in the 
United States has a stock capital of eighty million dollars, of 
which a Senate Committee in 1884 reports : " Nearly the whole 
of it has arisen from stock dividends." 

Money lenders, or investors, soon learned to be shy of 
" stock," and subsequently they learned to be a little shy of 
mortgages, for mortgages in many cases did not represent 
capital invested any more than stock. That the roads should 
have survived these* operations and not sunk into universal 
bankruptcy is the only miraculous thing connected with the 
33 



1 



386 CORPORATIONS. 

business. It exhibits a marvelous recuperative power in the 
transportation industry of the country. By reference to the 
reports that come to us through the tenth census, of the one 
thousand one hundred and sixty-five railroad corporations, six 
hundred and twenty-three have earned a net income or profit 
on their stock • one hundred and sixty-nine companies had not 
yet commenced operations, and three hundred and seventy-three 
either created a deficit, or made the income balance the expendi- 
tures^ jgThe same page, to some extent, gives us the resources of 
these railroad companies, or rather of the men who manage them. 
The total income being $661,295,391, the total expenditure 
$415,508,485, and the net income or profit at $245,786,906.f 
The net income or profit is stated at 4.91 per cent, of " stock " 
aud funded debt^J Mr. Poor, for 1884, gives the gross earnings 
as $770,684,908, and the net earnings for that year as $268,- 
106, 258. X Crude as these figures are^they show us conclusively 
what would be the history of American transportation with roads 
honestly and economically built, and justly managed and 
administered. The whole agricultural population are groaning 
under the burdens of extravagant charges for transportation 
caused by the nefarious system that has controlled our railroad 
corporations. We can easily see where the colossal fortunes 
of modern times, which have no parallel in ancient history, 
come from. This system of railroad corporations is but in its 
infancy. Of the eleven hundred and sixty-five companies 
which pretend to represent upward of seven billions of prop- 
erty, two-thirds of their capital never existed anywhere but 
on paper, in all probability, far more than the half of these 
roads are controlled or under the influence of less than twenty 
men. These railroad corporations have, by the report of the 
census, an income twice as large as the government of the 
United States, and by the reports of Mr. Poor for 1885 a still 






* Compendium of the Tenth Census, part 2, page 1264. 

•f Ibid. X Poor's Manual of Kailroads for 1885, page 3. 



RESOURCES OF RAILROAD OFFICERS. 387 



\ 



greater amount. They disburse for expenditures and salaries 
fifty per cent, more than the government, and they dispose of 
a net income or profit of two hundred and sixty-eight millions. 
Not including those who construct the roads, but only those 
operating them, an army of 418,957 persons are employed by i 
them,* and allowing five of the population to be represented 
by each man, not a great deal less than a twentieth part of the 
population of the United States is dependent on this interest. 
The record shows of accidents, 2541 persons killed and 5674 
injured by their mode of operating the roads. After paying 
expenditures, the net earnings for 1883, or profits were $291,- 
587,588 ; of this amount $171,414,258 was paid as interest 
on bonds and $101,579,038 was paid as dividends on " stocks." 
What became of the other eighteen millions and a half is not 
set down by Mr. Poor. To show the great power of the 
managers of these corporations, Mr. Poor states that "an 
increase of net earnings equal to one mill per ton moved by 
the New York Central, would add $1,970,087." f «... Jr 

In contemplating this immense system, governed by men 
possessing large corporate powers and defiantly assuming that 
the law-making authority should not attempt to control them, 
we must be at once convinced that mistakes have been made 
in giving them the authority they exercise. It is indispensable 
for the public interests and safety that at the earliest possible 
moment every part of their business be placed under the strict- 
est regulations of law. Had these companies faithfully admin- 
istered the trusts confided to them, had they never watered 
stocks or placed mortgages on these properties without adding 
to their value, or done the thousand and one things that have 
scandalized railroad management, still a dangerous power of 
capital is here created, inconsistent with the public interests. 

Had it not been for the enormous credit systems built up in 

* Compendium of the Tenth Census, part 2, page 1266. 
f Poor's Manual of Eailroads for 1885, page 8. 



388 CORPORATIONS. 

this century, the creation as it is would have been impossible. 
The national debts of all the leading modern nations have 
increased rapidly during this century, and very rapidly since 
1848. The modern debts of the nations of Europe were 
largely contracted, and were the results of the outbursts of 
democracy which occurred in Europe and America within a 
century. The struggle for popular liberty in Europe was at 
first submerged by military despotism, then the restoration of 
monarchies ; next came the fresh outbreak near the middle of 
the century, which was quelled by the great standing armies.* 
The average annual increase of national debts of leading 
nations has been $489,335,079. f If they continue growing 
at that rate, the same authority adds, " until the close of the 
present century, they will have reached the enormous sum of 
$32,583,781 ,254." Of this it is only necessary to remark that 
such a debt can never be paid. It is a mortgage placed, or 
attempted to be placed on the shoulders of coming gener- 
ations, largely to maintain by despotic means, governments 
obnoxious to the people, and inimical to their interests. 

The national debts, however, are but an item in the drafts 
this generation is drawing on posterity. In our own country 
we have the state debts, to begin with. From 1820 to 1838, 
$174,306,994 of state debts were contracted and stock issued.^ 
From 1833 to 1840 it was found almost impossible to float 
state debts in Europe at any price. The interest was often 
not paid. In 1842 an attempt was made to get Congress to 
assume the state debts. This had been done once before, but 
under different circumstances. An Act of Congres was passed 
August 4th, 1790, by which the United States assumed the state 
debts which had largely been created in meeting the expenses 
of the Eevolutionary War. By the report of a committee of 
Congress in 1843, the state debts were estimated at $207,894,- 

* Tenth Census, vol. vii., page 267. 

f Ibid. t Ibid., page 525. 



LOCAL AND COKrORATE. 389 

613.35, many of them having failed to pay interest. In 1883 
the state debts aggregated $241,010,334 of funded debt, and 
$22,878,019 of unfunded; total state debt, §263,888,353.* 

It is worthy of note, that of the amount of funded debt, 
thirteen southern, or formerly slave states owe $143,120,370, 
and the state debts of nineteen northern or former free states 
are $96,844,820. Delaware has a debt of $864,750, and 
Kentucky is practically out of debt, as is West Virginia. 
Colorado, Illinois and Vermont are free from debt. Forty 
years ago Illinois was so hopelessly in debt as to be considered 
bankrupt. It will thus be seen that in one portion of the 
country state debts have not increased in the past fifty years, 
but as an offset to this there has been created in that period 
an immense volume of local debt, such as county, township 
and city debt. The state debt is indeed small compared with the 
local debt ; it has been largely incurred in aid of corporations. 
This is not all, the most valuable franchises of our towns and 
cities, such as wharves, highways, privileges for gas and other 
manufactures are falling into the hands of these corporations, 
which at once seek to make them monopolies. Beside the 
great volume of local debt the corporations created within 
the last fifty years have run into debt enormously. By the 
report of Mr. Poor for 1885, already quoted, the funded debt 
of the railroads of the United States is $3,669,1 15,772,f 
or, in other words, these corporations in that period have, 
outside of the stock they subscribed, the ostensible purpose of 
which was to build the roads, incurred a debt and saddled it 
on these enterprises, fifty per cent, larger than the national 
and state debts all put together. Of that three billion and a 
half of evidences of funded debt, it is probable that one billion, 
or ten hundred millions, have found their way into the pockets 
of the railroad manipulators, armed with corporate charters. 

* SpofFord's American Almanac for 1885, page 105. 
f Poor's Manual of Eailroads for 1885, page 1. 



390 CORPORATIONS. 

What the debts of the other corporations in the United States 
are, it would be impossible to conjecture, as there is little or no 
means of ascertaining. In issuing the local, city, township 
and county debts great opportunity was offered for building 
up the fortunes of manipulators, and creating capital for the 
corporations. The securities sold for little and the interest 
was large. The whole system of modern stock jobbing was to 
a great extent founded on it, and it is difficult to tell which is 
real and which is fictitious capital. * 

Our banking system is largely in the hands of companies 
and corporations. They aspire to control the circulating 
medium of the country, and to " regulate the value of money" 
instead of Congress. In September, 1884, there was in opera- 
tion 2664 national banks. Their resources are placed at two 
billion two hundred and seventy-nine million, their capital 
stock being five hundred and twenty-four million dollars,* 
which shows that they do business to four times the extent of 
their capital stock. Their books, of course, balance : Up to 
November 30th, 1882, there was some opportunity to get a 
little data as to the state and private banks, but the repeal of 
the Act taxing bank capital and deposits swept away the last 
chance of throwing light upon the operations of these 
concerns. 

In 1882, by the reports at that time attainable, there were 
4473 state banks, and they had a capital of two hundred and 
twenty-eight million four thousand dollars, and had received 
deposits of seven hundred and seventy-nine millions of dollars, f 
and were thus enabled to do business on more than three times 
the amount of their capital. Beside these there were forty- 
two savings banks with a capital of four million, which had 
received forty -three million five thousand dollars in deposits, 
and six hundred and twenty-five savings banks without capital, 
which had received nine hundred and fifty million two thou- 

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 91. f Ibid. 



INSURANCE AND MINING SCHEMES. . 391 

sand dollars as deposits.* Hence it will be seen that a great 
many of the operations of the corporations are conducted on 
paper. The stock of the railroad, telegraph lines, etc., could 
not be said to have built the roads. In many cases it was a 
myth, and in the few cases when it entered into construction 
it cannot be accepted as a cash investment dollar for dollar. 
Those who have managed the corporate powers have been 
enabled to create great debts, and to manipulate, speculate in, 
and use these paper securities. The result is shown in the 
fact that all the large railroad and telegraph operators are the 
principal stock jobbers. They have commenced absorbing the 
weak and small companies. The chartered recipients of public 
corporate authority turn that authority against the public. 
An incidental result of this abuse of trust is that they use the 
assets of these corporations, or, their inflated paper to get pos- 
session of outside properties. 

A clever writer once advised a man who was in a hurry to 
be rich to "invent a pill." In modern times the favorite plan 
is to invent a mining or insurance company or corporation. 
There are, of course, many solvent and worthy insurance 
companies, but the chief assets of no inconsiderable number 
are an office, agents and a prospectus. So long as money comes 
in very freely the institution flourishes, but when the time for 
paying policies arrives, they either go into bankruptcy, or try 
to compound with the policy holders, and get them to accept 
twenty-five or fifty per cent, of the amount due. " Mining 
companies " are the " wild cats " of these days. Their busi- 
ness is not so much miuing in the bowels of the earth, as in 
the pockets of those to whom they sell "stocks." If every 
person who has been duped by them would cry aloud, there 
would be a fearful sound heard from Maine to California. 

Mr. Mulhall, in 1882, states the aggregate wealth of the 
United States to be eight billion three hundred and thirty- 

* Spofibrd's American Almanac for 1885, page 91. 



392 CORPORATIONS. 

nine million pounds.* He divides it thus : Land, is set down 
at two billion one hundred and fifty million pounds. Houses, 
two billion seven hundred and eighty million. Railways are 
put at one billion one hundred and ninety million pounds. 
Cattle, at three hundred and seventy-eight million, and "sun- 
dries," at one billion eight hundred and forty-one million 
pounds. So far as land and farm improvements are concerned, 
Mr. Spofford, quoting from the tenth census, puts the value 
of farms in the United States, including land, fences and 
buildings, at ten billion one hundred and ninety-seven million 
ninety-six thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars.f 
The two tables of Mr. Spofford and Mr. Mulhall do not cover 
the same data, as the former includes only the farms with 
their houses and improvements, while the latter estimates 
"land," which may be improved or unimproved, and puts 
houses in a separate column. Accepting Mr. Spofford's state- 
ment of the value of all the land and agricultural improve- 
ments in the country as ten billions one hundred and seventy- 
nine million dollars, we find that the railroad corporations 
have incurred a funded debt of three billion six hundred and 
sixty-nine million, which is more than one-third of the entire 
amount. Mr. Spofford, in the same table just quoted, puts 
the estimated value of all farm products for 1879, "sold, con- 
sumed or on hand," at two billion two hundred and thirteen 
million four hundred and two thousand five hundred and 
sixty-four dollars. As the railroads largely draw their re- 
sources from the agricultural interests of the country, this 
railroad debt may, not without reason, be considered as a 
burden placed upon this annual production. To permit these 
railroad corporations to create a debt, vying with the debts 
of the greatest nations, and then claim the right to tax trans- 
portation on railways, that were constructed as public high- 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 471. 
f Spofford's American Almanac, for 1885. 



LAW FOR CORPORATIONS. 393 

ways, to pay for them, is a very serious matter. All the 
fictitious charges they cau so place upon them, they will assert 
to be " vested privileges." While the United States has been 
rapidly paying off the national debt, created by the war to pre- 
serve the Union, these railroad companies continue to increase 
their debts. As the people have to pay these debts just as 
surely as they pay the national taxes, it is certainly time that 
this immense irresponsible system was put completely under 
the iron hand of law. 

The statistics of all public corporations, or companies, or 
firms, doing general public business, such as banking and 
insurance, should be public property. No matter what his 
integrity, no man ought to be permitted to do business with 
other peoples money on the confidence plan. Companies 
doing insurance and similar business should never be permit- 
ted to expend more than a fixed percentage of the sums they 
receive for insurance policies, in salaries and expenses, as only 
a certain amount is safe and consistent with honest business. 
In railroad operations, watering stock, borrowing money to pay 
dividends, or make bonuses, expending the funds of the com- 
pany for anything but its economical and real expenses, 
making false contracts for construction, loading the enterprise 
with debt to prevent the stockholders from paying their sub- 
scriptions ; bargains between the men managing the road and 
express companies, to let the latter get all the profits of trans- 
portation, and schemes of the latter to share these profits with 
the officers of the road, to the detriment of the shareholders 
and the public, concealing or misrepresenting the true business 
condition of the company ; all these and many other common 
artifices of railroad companies ought to be declared penal of- 
fenses, and punished accordingly. 

Eailroad corporations when in charge of a public highway, 
should, in every respect, be closely and rigidly subject to law 
in all their transactions. There ought to be complete codes, 
state and national, of railway law. The rates of freight and 



394 CORPORATIONS. 

fare should be regulated by law just as bridge, road or ferry 
tolls have been. No bond, mortgage or debt should be a lien 
on the road unless the money derivable therefrom was fully 
expended in building it, and no stock should be considered a 
lien or encumbrance on the road unless paid up and fully 
expended in its construction. Koads, moreover, should be 
compelled to connect conveniently with each other; to run 
their trains to make time connections, and to carry for every 
other railroad on equal terms. These incorporations and com- 
panies should pay exactly the same taxes on their property that 
all other citizens do, assessed at the same time and in the same 
way. No law should ever be passed exempting property from 
taxation, except incomes and property below a fixed standard. 
If any one is iuclined to think that such enactments would 
prevent the building of railroads or would cripple or retard 
them, he is mistaken. If railroads can be properly and 
economically built in our country for eight, ten or fifteen 
thousand dollars per mile, and were so built, they would be a 
good investment, and would, at greatly reduced rates for 
freight and passage, furnish a fair compensation for necessary 
laborers and employees, and a legitimate profit on the capital 
expended. If such legislation would put an end to Wall street 
jobbing in the stocks and securities of railroads it would be a 
public blessing. It is absolutely indispensable for a healthy 
and moral state of business that it shall be impossible to 
make great fortunes dabbling in stocks. All these fictitious 
and fraudulent modes of getting money must cease if we are 
to have a just standard founded on honest labor. Besides its 
evil effects on business, the pernicious example of fortunes 
made without effort, by stock-jobbing and gambling, is disas- 
trous to our people; disguise these inflations as you will, 
they inflict burdens the people must ultimately pay. If 
all the inflated price of such stocks could be stripped from 
them, if nothing but the dollar actually expended could be rep- 
resented, the " shrinkage " would be no public calamity. 



GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE. 395 

This may be styled paternal government. One of the oft- 
debated propositions among practical statesmen is as to the 
legitimate functions of government. It has been held, and not 
without reason, that governments should confine themselves to 
certain duties necessary for peace, order and protection to life, 
property and reputation, leaving the individual as free as pos- 
sible to carve his own fortune with the minimum of govern- 
ment interference. This, however, must be considered in con- 
nection with the conditions and necessities of highly civilized 
society and dense population. It is denied, and justly, that a 
man has a right to bring up his children in ignorance ; it is 
denied, and justly, that a man has no duty to perform to the 
poor, ignorant, weak and helpless ; it is denied, and justly, 
that a man can be allowed to do anything that is against 
the interests of the majority ; it is denied, and justly, 
that a man should be permitted to make gain by false pre- 
tences, dishonest bargains, unfair combinations, or in any 
manner save by the measure of honest labor and honest equiv- 
alents. If, however, the most extreme views as to govern- 
ment non-interference were taken, it cannot be pretended that 
a corporation, a creature permitted to exercise certain public 
functions, should not be rigidly governed by law. There are 
a great many things the individual must be controlled in by 
the will of the majority, and when the individual combines 
with other individuals for purposes of gain, everything con- 
nected with such operations should doubly be the subject of 
public control and scrutiny. No partnership, company or cor- 
poration should be allowed to exist with unlimited gains and 
limited responsibility. No public organization should exist 
without publicity. Corporate privileges are a public trust 
which ought to be resumed by the people whenever they have 
become subversive of public interests. The time to all ap- 
pearance is rapidly approaching, when peace, order and 
security may demand the abolition of such delegated powers. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SHADOWS OF THE COMING AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY. 

The fetters of want — American and French republics — Free and slave labor 
in the young American republic — Aristocracy as first planted almost sub- 
merged — Failure of political amendments to secure equal power to land- 
less freedmen — The exodus — Capitalist and wage worker — Duke of Argyle 
— Necessity of maintaining republican simplicity — Great increasing 
wealth — Where it goes — Rich, middle and poorer classes — Wages and in- 
comes of tradesmen — Aggregate accumulated wealth — What workingmen 
have no interest in — W T hat they have a small interest in — Gradually 
ceasing to own lands and lots — Statistics of labor and of employees, pro- 
fessional men and capitalists — Family and individual property — Laws of 
inheritance — Life — Property — Reputation — Interest and compound inter- 
est — The cumulative power of capital — Atkinson on national debts — 
Paper credits carry on business — Profits of directing energy — Capital 
which is used, and capital which is of little use — Non-producing classes 
always an aristocracy — We must cultivate respect for honest poverty. 

It has been truly said that man, like the horse and the ass, 
can be subdued and led by the mouth. When the opportuni- 
ties for procuring a livelihood are equal, men have little to 
fear, but when governments, instead of protecting the rights 
of all citizens, invade them and place the bounties of nature 
in the hands of monopolists, then men step across the 
threshold of active life in a great degree helpless. The inex- 
orable necessity for food, and the constant pressure of other 
wants are the bridle and halter which, under our artificial 
forms of society, are too apt to be the forerunners of aristoc- 
racy and despotism. We pride ourselves on the possession 
of political freedom, and boast that we live in a country that 
knows no distinctions among men. The American republic 
396 



DEMOCRATIC BASIS OF GOVERNMENT. 397 

was founded on the theory of the equal rights of all its citi- 
zens. It was the first result of the great democratic wave that 
swept over Christendom toward the close of the last century. 
The spirit of revolt and independence had been brewing for 
generations. The American colonists were largely refugees 
fleeing from despotism and aristocracy ; the first had taken 
political power, independence and dignity from the people, 
and the latter had monopolized the soil of their native land, 
rendering it impossible for them to live there, save as serfs or 
renters. It is not surprising, therefore, that the new govern- 
ment they formed was the incarnation of protests and hopes 
long smothered. To form a nation independent of the British 
sovereign was one thing, to establish a government on the 
basis of equal human rights, quite another. Then, as now, 
they had conservatives and radicals ; there was also a little 
leaven of weak, undeveloped aristocracy, but all gave way 
before the democratic ideas of government which, among En- 
glish-speaking people had been struggling against king and 
aristocracy for three hundred years. The Declaration of 
American Independence was therefore considered the triumph 
of liberty and equality among men. 

- Inspired by its success, the French revolution followed. 
The European field was very different. France was in the 
last stage of political dry rot. Kingcraft and aristocracy had 
almost eaten up an unhappy people, but the rulers themselves 
were verging on imbecility. Kings and aristocrats were 
destroyed. Finding the church allied with the state, in- 
stead of assailing priests religion was assailed, and humanity 
held up its hands in horror, as the bloody guillotine cruelly 
revenged the terrible wrongs of centuries, and proletarians 
shouted that there " is no God," because they could not find 
Him among the French hierarchy. In the rest of Europe, 
tyrants, moneyed interests, conservatives and even moderate, 
timid liberals were alarmed. A reaction set in, but France 

was tenacious of her purpose. This hotbed of sedition and 
34 



398 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

anarchy became dangerous ; war was declared against it. The 
young republic became a great camp. Every crowned head 
and every aristocrat in Europe was against France. Such 
odds have scarcely ever been seen in war j but behind despotic 
organizations a smoldering democratic element in Europe 
looked on France as the forerunner of liberty, and for a time 
Europe was under her feet. Even Jena wrung from the 
Prussian government the land reforms of Stein and Harden- 
berg. France, not satisfied with a war of defense, entered 
upon a war of conquest : the republic was merged in the 
empire. The code of law, which really was the code of the 
revolution, became the " Code Napoleon." Titles may have 
been created, but feudalism was not restored. Hatred of 
landed aristocracy was firmly anchored in the public mind, 
the policy to divide the country in small farms owned by cul- 
tivating farmers was fixed, and democratic laws of inheritance 
secured the result, j The " Holy Alliance " crushed the em- 
pire, but through all the vicissitudes of France the seeds sown 
by Mirabeau, Seyes and their colleagues, have fructified. In 
1848 another democratic uprising convulsed Europe, but this 
time kings and aristocrats were prepared, and enormous 
armies crushed it. Reforms have been slowly doled out to 
appease the angry spirit. Gigantic armaments are maintained 
at an expense which threatens Europe with universal bank- 
ruptcy. In spite of all these, the doctrines of equal human 
rights and reforms in land tenure were never so much dis- 
cussed as they are to-day. The war against despotism and 
aristocracy was checked, but it is not over. 

While this was going on in Europe, what was happening 
in America. Very considerable estates had been permitted to 
go into the hands of certain families, especially in the South 
Atlantic states. The preservation of African slavery after the 
formation of a free republic aided the creation of a Southern 
aristocracy. The great estates were cultivated by slaves. It 
had been an old idea with many men pretending to be repub* 



LANDLESS NEGROES. S99 

licans, that the menial labor might safely be performed by an 
alien and servile class in a republic. Had the "accidents of 
war" and the "mills of the gods" not made an end of slavery 
it would not have taken many generations to place all the non- 
slaveholding population under the feet of a terrible oligarchy. 
Another thing would have happened. The little slave plan- 
tations would have been absorbed by the great ones. The 
sympathies of the poorer class of white men who did not own 
slaves were secured in the interests of slavery in the Southern 
states by appealing to their prejudices against the negroes. 
At the close of the Avar, everything that constitutional amend- 
ments and law could do to place the negroes on a political 
equality was done. No steps were taken to enable them to 
become owners of the soil. Neither were measures adopted to 
secure the disruption and division of the great estates. The 
result ought to be a most instructive lesson to us, and fully 
illustrates the idea announced by John Adams, that "those who 
own the land will rule the country." In spite of constitutional 
amendments and civil rights bills, the great landowners of 
the Southern states rule that portion of our republic. If each 
of the colored men had been encouraged and aided to possess a 
homestead of even forty or twenty acres, and measures been 
taken to disentegrate and divide the great estates, the result 
would have been different. The attempts of the colored people 
to emigrate from the Southern states, where they were born, to 
more inhospitable Northwestern states, were merely efforts to 
get land. It was a struggle to escape from the fate of settling 
down as tenant-holders under their former masters. Most of 
them are too poor to buy land. The dependent condition in 
which they are placed does not afford them much opportunity 
to improve their fortunes. The present unsettled condition of 
affairs in the South reduces land values, even to speculators, 
and offers the nation an opportunity to make landholders of 
the colored people. It is to be regretted that so few of them 
are able to avail themselves of the present low prices to be- 



400 SHADOWS OF AEISTOCRACY. 

come landowners. Unless there is some change in the existing 
system the time is not far distant when the lands in the South 
will be held at a high price, and heavy rents will place per- 
manent burdens on the shoulders of the cultivators of the soil, 
and furnish the means to sustain a privileged, luxurious, non- 
productive and aristocratic class. 

In the Northern and Western states, as we have shown, 
the steady tendency is to permit the lands to drift into the 
hands of capitalist holders. When the public land is taken 
up, which will be very soon, the absorption of the land by 
the owners of accumulated capital will be greatly accelerated. 
So far, capitalists have made larger profits from other invest- 
ments. The rapid multiplication of fortunes in business enter- 
prises has distracted attention from land. Those who wish 
to found wealthy families will soon seek the enduring mon- 
opoly of land as the safest and most permanent basis for an 
income, and will find few obstacles where the land is a chattel, 
and small holders are continually liable to be embarrassed. 
For a comparatively trifling amount the government permits 
this individual monoply of the soil, and guarantees the power 
to collect a revenue from occupying cultivators " forever." 
The power to exact this tax from producers is the thing we 
call a fee simple title. So long as there is no law prohibiting 
the owning of land except for cultivation, limiting the amount 
which shall be held, providing for its redistribution, and 
forbidding its aggregation, land will inevitably go into the 
hands of capitalist holders. Whetted by the desire to obtain 
greater revenues and more dignity, the owners of the large 
farms will soon own the small ones. The producing yeoman 
farmer will sink to the condition of a renter or laborer, 
and the longer this state of affairs lasts the more difficult it 
will be for the farmer to become once more an owner. Land 
when so held will be held at high prices. The landlords will 
have great influence and be the dominant power in the coun- 
try, no matter what the government may be called. We are 



ALIEN LANDHOLDING. 401 

now laying the foundations of landed aristocracy, and unless 
something is done to check and prevent it, our country, in 
spite of its boasted freedom, will become a country of land- 
lords and aristocrats, ruling over and subsisting on tenants and 
laborers. 

Another thing is happening. Capital is absorbing the 
manufacturing power of the country. We have no longer 
trades controlled by tradesmen and mechanics, but capitalist 
employers and wage workers. We are slowly placing the 
power of all our means of transportation in the hands of capi- 
talists, and the tendency of the system is to permit them to 
become monopolists. It is the same thing with canals, tele- 
graphs and many other necessary adjuncts of civilization. 
Bankers, insurance companies and stock-brokers claim the 
privilege of controlling money and regulating the supply and 
demand of the medium of exchange. It will not be denied 
that the result of these things will be to produce great classes 
existing by their daily labor, wage workers and a smaller class 
of capitalist landlords and proprietors of franchises living on 
capital, and having the power to fix the wages of labor, 
and determine what shall be the condition of the working 
classes. 

Of this state of affairs our aristocratic European neighbors 
are not oblivious. Seeing the tendency in that direction in 
America they take more kindly to our institutions. For 
several years shoots of aristocracy from the Old World have 
traversed our country and become afflicted with land hunger. 
No alien should be permitted to own a foot of American soil. 
If a man intends to become a citizen our government permits 
him to take a homestead. A foreigner who never intends to 
become a citizen, can, unfortunately, buy all he wants 
at second hand. Bad as it would be to have our farmers 
paying rent to native landed aristocrats, it would be still worse 
that they should pay annual rents to a foreign landlord. We 
have already enumerated some of the alien landholders. About 



402 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

fifteen years ago a tract of laud was bought in Kansas from 
the Pacific Railway Company by an association or combination 
of English gentlemen, for aristocratic settlement ; they never 
intended to become citizens of the United States, and called 
their town Victoria. Much larger tracts than that have since 
been purchased, many of them quite lately. In his reply to 
Henry George, the Duke of Argyle, with these facts doubtless 
before him, sarcastically sneers at people in the " many new 
worlds where kings are left behind and aristocracies have not 
had time to be established." * The British aristocracy no doubt 
view the aristocratic tendencies of society in America with more 
than complacency. In his reply to Mr. George, the Duke 
refers to an act of courtesy tendered him by that author in 
terms an American gentleman would consider rude. Super- 
ciliousness of that kind may be the privilege of noblemen, but 
leads us to regret that in devoting their estates to sheep the 
cultivation of gentlemen may sometimes be neglected. 

Proud of our free republic and confident of security so long 
as men hold the ballot, we have been much too skeptical as to 
the insidious advances of an aristocracy. We cannot fail to 
observe that the daughters of some of our most wealthy citi- 
zens seek and form marriage alliances with the titled nobility 
of Europe. Steps are also taken by most of our very rich 
men to avoid having their property divided at death by con- 
centrating the greater portion on one son, thus seeking to 
introduce the infamous law of primogeniture. It is true that 
no inconsiderable portion of our would-be aristocracy is what is 
styled a "shoddy aristocracy," vain, selfish, undignified and 
comparatively illiterate. These parties are only worthy of 
contempt for their ridiculous airs. After all, their conduct is 
not so reprehensible as that of an educated, wealthy citizen, 
who, merely because he possesses a great fortune, is recreant to 

* The Duke of Argyle's Eeply to Henry George, in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury for April, 1884. 



V 



THE ARISTOCRACY OF WEALTH. 403 

the principles of republican liberty, failing to preserve that 
dignified and sturdy simplicity which ought to be the pride 
of every American. Law cannot give tone to society ; we 
need a purified public opinion which will sternly maintain 
republican dignity. These matters may appear to be trifles, 
and yet they are not without significance. We must not lose 
sight of the danger of confounding aristocracy with titles. 
V Landed aristocracies in Europe were mainly established by 
usurpation, violence and fraud. The title of duke, marquis, 
or lord, is merely to overawe and mislead. It gilds and con- 
ceals the steps by which a man has seized and holds the 
monopoly of a county or a province. So long as human 
beings are weak enough to worship and tolerate a nobility, 
the crimes of an aristocracy will be possible. 
I )/ Our American aristocracy did not start that way. It has 
/ to creep into existence in a republic in which all are ostensibly 

/equals. The wealth of the country increases at present faster 
than it ever did before. In Mulhall's tables he puts the wealth 
of the United States in pounds sterling, which is not much less 

I than five times the amount in dollars as follows : In 1850, 
£1,686,000,000; in 1860, £3,866,000,000; in 1870, £7,074,- 
000,000; and in 1880, at £9,495,000,000.* Mr. SpofFord's 
figures vary somewhat from these. For 1850 he gives $7,135,- 
780,228 ; for 1860, $16,159,616,068 ; for 1870, $30,068,518,- 
507, and for 1880, $43,642,000,000. f We will use Mr. 
Spofford's figures. One curious circumstance will be found 
by referring to Mr. Spofford's table. In 1850 the wealth 
estimated at $7,135,780,228 is assessed for taxes at $6,024,- 
666,909, while in 1880 the wealth put down at $43,642,000,- 
000 is only assessed at $16,902,000,000. It will thus be seen 
that the great increase of wealth seems to be accompanied by 

v greater facilities for keeping it off the tax roll ff Mr. Spofford, 



* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 470. 
f Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 21. 



404 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

on page 105 of his almanac, gives the taxable property in the 
United States at $19,180,484,203. These figures he obtained 
from the state officers of the thirty -eight states, many of the 
reports coming up to 1884 and two of them to 1885, when it 
is presumable there was a considerable increase of property 
over the return for 1880. By the census tables as reported for 
1850 and 1860 the value of slaves was given in fifteen states 
and dropped in 1870 and 1880. In 1850, with this value of 
slaves included, the wealth of the United States if equally 
divided per capita was $308 and in 1880 the price of slaves 
being excluded the wealth was $870.* In other Avords there 
was an increase of wealth in the United States, equal to $562 
to every man, woman and child in the country, or, count- 
ing each family as consisting of five persons, a wealth per 
family of $2810. In the present state of our statistics we 
are not in possession of accurate data as to where this great 
increase of wealth has gone, but if we consider the condition of 
wage workers in 1850, and the condition of wage workers in 
1880, in the United States, it is extremely doubtful if the 
laborers are any better off, or even as well off to-day as they 
were then. In 1850 wage workers had occasionally a little 
property. In our own observation we are firmly persuaded 
that more of them, in proportion to their number, had homes 
of their own at that time than have them now. It is to be 
granted that the number of persons included in what is styled 
the " middle classes " has probably increased, although nothing 
could be more vague than the term "middle classes" in the 
United States. We will borrow a mode sometimes used by 
British statisticians, and fix a salary or an income of $1000 
for the head of a family as indicating the "middle classes.'' 
In a table of Mr. Spofford's condensed from the state reports f 
and which includes the wages paid to bakers, blacksmiths, 
bookbinders, bricklayers, cabinet makers, carpenters and join- 

* Spofford's American Almanac, page 21. f Ibid., page 103. 



RICH AND MIDDLE CLASSES. 405 

ers, laborers, porters, painters, plasterers, plumbers, printers, 
shoemakers, tailors and tinsmiths, we find that only one of 
them, the plumbers, with their wages computed at the highest 
rate in the highest market, Chicago, reaches $1040. The 
table in this case is a weekly wage to working plumbers in 
Chicago varying from $12 to $20 a week. At the latter rate 
I have computed it. The laborers run about $350 per year. 
The " middle classes " in the country would probably include 
employers, business and professional men, merchants and 
middlemen generally, whose income was from $1000 to $10,- 
000 per year, and whose property did not exceed $100,000. 

While this " middle class " in Europe may have increased in 
numbers and wealth, as claimed and boasted by Mr. Mallock 
and Mr. Giffen, it is not the opinion of the writer that this 
class in the United States have accumulated much more than 
their proportion of the increased wealth. Adding these to 
the still wealthier class, including millionaires, all of them 
with their families fall considerably below the tenth part of 
the population. A number of very great fortunes have been 
created out of the accumulated wealth, and while the middle 
classes have increased in numbers, and have had some additions 
in wealth, nine-tenths of the population have not increased in 
wealth in proportion, and a very large number are absolutely 
poorer. Such a result shows the growth of an aristocracy of 
wealth,. Mr. Mulhall, in a table, gives what he styles "the 
component parts of American wealth," that is, the wealth of 
1 880. Land and forest are valued at £2,150,000,000 (pounds 
sterling). Cattle, £378,000,000. Railways, £1 ,1 90,000,000. 
Public works, £527,000,000. Houses, £2,780,000,000. Fur- 
niture, £1,385,000,000. Merchandise, £155,000,000. Bul- 
lion, £157,000,000. Shipping, £60,000,000. Sundries are 
put down at £713,000,000.*// This latter must include bank- 
ing capital, telegraphs, telephones, insurance companies 

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 469. 



40G SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

and the capital of a great many other undescribed interests. 
Vague as the table is, it gives us some slight clue. Of the 
aggregate Mr. Mulhail gives of nine billion four hundred 
and ninety-five million pounds sterling, as the wealth of the 
United States, there are several heads in which the workers 
for wages have little or no interest. These are in the capital 
of railways, cattle, public works, merchandise, bullion, ship- 
ping and sundries. Under the latter head a small amount may 
be credited them. Twenty-five years ago laborers and wage 
workers had a few cattle, but now these classes own little 
under this head. Of the two billion seven hundred and 
eighty million pounds in houses, it is correct to assume that 
the wage workers in proportion to their number, do not own 
as much value in houses as they did in 1850. The concen- 
tration of the value of houses and lots in the hands of capital- 
ists has been rapidly going on during the past twenty years. 
Of the sum of £2,150,000,000 in land and forest it is fair to 
estimate that of this there is no large amount in the hands 
of wage workers ; there is a considerable amount in the hands 
of poor agricultural laborers still, although the process of 
transferring laud through mortgages and otherwise, to capi- 
talists, is rapidly going on^/fln the writer's observation, in 
"thlT West" during the past ten years, of homesteads, to secure 
titles to which requires five years' occupancy, almost forty 
per cent, of these farms are alienated or mortgaged within two 
years of the time of securing title. 

Our system of economics in the United States therefore 
presents several dissimilar and apparently contradictory fea- 
tures. First, the opportunity offered to a poor man to get a 
farm or piece of land to improve on easy terms, and, second, 
a commercial and economic v system, under which capital is 
steadily acquiring the land, controlling manufactures, rail- 
roads, telegraphs, and accumulating fortunes in the hands of a 
comparatively limited class. 

The population of the United States in 1880 was 50,155,- 



LABORERS AND MANAGERS. 407 

783. Of these, 17,392,099 were persons, employed in agricul- 
ture, professional and personal services, trade, transportation, 
manufacturing and mining^ Of those thus employed, 2,647,- 
157 were females, and 14,744,942 males. No inconsiderable 
number of the latter were lads and boys over ten years. 
Persons thus employed probably represent an actual popu- 
lation of at least forty-seven millions. The number engaged 
in agriculture is set down at 7,670,493. f Those who are 
classed as performing personal and professional services num- 
ber 4,074,238. To prevent these latter figures from giving 
an incorrect impression it is necessary to state that they in- 
clude 1,859,223 laborers, 1,075,653 domestic servants, 44,851 
barbers, 77,413 employees of hotels, 121,942 laundresses and 
launderers, besides a great many other laboring employees or 
wage workers. The actual professional classes, clergymen, 
lawyers, doctors, architects, artists, journalists, claim agents, 
teachers and scientific persons only aggregate 470,475. Those 
engaged in mining and manufactures are stated to be 3,337,112, 
of whom all but a small number are wage workers. In trade 
and transportation 1 ,810,256 are engaged.^ The census shows 
3375 railroad officials and 415,582 employees. Officials of 
insurance companies 1774, and bankers and brokers, 15,180. 
Of those engaged in trade and transportation upwards of a 
million are merely wage workers. Officials and managers of 
railroads, banks, insurance companies, and brokerage all 
together do not number more than 20,000, and only a small 
number of persons really control them. vOftKef 800,000 
persons engaged as traders or middlemen, considerably more 
than half are clerks, laborers or other employees, and the 
tendency in all the branches of trade is to merge tli3 small 
trading houses into large establishments usually owned by 
a company. Except in a few Western states the land has 

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 277. 

t Ibid., page 274. J Ibid., page 277. 




408 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

been monopolized, and a mechanic or artisan, if discharged, 
cannot support his family from the natural products of the 
earth. Even the fisheries on seas and rivers are becoming pri- 
vate property. Places for shelter as homes are monopolized. 
If unable to pay rent the laborer cannot rear an humble hut 
on the common ; everything is closed to him, but the chance 
of finding employment from a master. Trades unions have 
not the power of law to sustain them. Lawmakers play fast 
and loose between employers and employed : they profess 
sympathy for laboring men and legislate in the interests of 
accumulated propertv^i All these are the steps by which an 
aristocratic class in the United States is being formed. 

Through the transmission of property from one generation to 
another, aristocracies may be made or aristocracies prevented. 
In many ancient countries property was family property. In 
certain conditions of society the relations between man and 
man were summed up in kinship. The fundamental assump- 
tion being that all men not related to you were your enemies 
or slaves.* The kinship tie was in some countries cemented 
by religious rites and strengthened among those who worship 
dead ancestors. In the Brehon law the word Fine (or family) 
is used for the children and descendants of a living parent. 
The Sept, the " unit" of ancient Ireland, and the "joint and 
undivided family" of the East Indian law, constitutes the 
combined descendants of an ancestor long since dead. All 
these absorbed strangers by marriage or adoption. With 
these the property w r as the property of the whole. No one 
could be deprived of his interest. No one's share could be 
disposed of without his consent. No person could by will 
deprive any other person of his equal rights. In fact, 
making wills was almost unheard of. As women often mar- 

o 

ried and left the tribe, their interests and rights were long a 
subject of dispute and conflict. In large portions of India, 

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 227. 



• 



WEALTH BY INHERITANCE. 409 

to-day, a woman's interest in the land, which is merely a 
usufruct with the improvement, cannot be alienated without 
her consent. There a married woman's separate property is 
called the "Stridhan," which the modern English Indian 
courts decide to consist of the property given to her by her 
family, at marriage, or by her husband. This she holds in- 
dependent of him. The ancient Hindoo law went much far- 
ther, and the modern compiler of the Hindoo law includes 
what they may have acquired by inheritance, purchase, parti- 
tion, seizure or finding.* The Mahometan rulers of India, 
although they did not altogether overthrow the ancient law 
and custom, endeavored to introduce their own ideas, Ma- 
hometan laws of inheritance have often obtruded themselves 
to the disadvantage of women. The old Mahometan law 
of inheritance divides the property in minute fractions among 
the males. As Mahometanism encountered conflicting ideas 
it adjusted itself to Various conditions, however. In many 
Mahometan countries the daughter takes half a son's share, 
but if these cases are carefully examined they will be found 
in countries where the old law and customs w<ere much more 
liberal to woman. Any inequality in the rights of women 
and men found in India, may be traced to Mahometan inter- 
ference. Among these ancient countries of the Aryan stock, 
the Allod was the share a man took in the appropriated public 
domain. It came to him as a right. The idea of walling it 
to him or from him was not thought of. The Roman law- 
was intrusive and aggressive. It left its marks wherever the 
Roman foot was planted. The Romans distinguished between 
real and personal property, or rather between property that 
could pass on a bargain between individuals and that which 
required record and a conformity to law. The distinction 
was Res Mancipi and Res nee Mancipi when it did not require 
the conveyance of " mancipation " or release. Res Mancipi 

*, Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 323. 
35 



410 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

included land, slaves, houses, oxen ; everything else went 
under the other head. By the Roman law a woman be- 
came the ward of her husband, like a daughter. All the 
wife's property passed absolutely to him. Under this oppres- 
sive system a custom grew of contracting a sort of civil mar- 
riage. The wife absented herself from her husband's home 
three days and three nights to avoid the Usucapion, which 
would have absorbed her property. There was a provision 
covering this kind of contract in the Roman code of twelve 
tables. A strong influence was brought to bear to make these 
marriages less respectable, and as they could be terminated 
at the will of either party, some color was lent to this idea. 
It ultimately became the common Roman marriage, however. 
The Roman law and the theoretical principles of the Roman 
government originated from philosophical Greek theories. We 
can easily trace the portions of Roman law that have been 
thrust into our social and political system. A singular cus- 
tom grew up in Europe several hundred years ago of giving 
the widow a life interest of one-third in her husband's real 
estate, and a certain share of his personal property. It grew 
out of the conflict of different regulations on this question. 
With some nations the woman took share with her husband's 
family ; in other cases she held her own property in her own 
right. In India, under Hindoo law a childless widow had a 
life estate in her husband's property. This was an ancient 
custom with many nations, affording the surviving member 
of the household a life rent in the property that had belonged 
to both. Out of this provision came the practice of Suttee- 
ism, by which the widow offered herself up as a sacrifice to 
the manes of her husband. The custom was a comparatively 
modern innovation. It had its origin in sheer selfishness, and 
as a general thing only affected childless widows. The male 
relatives of the deceased husband could not come into the 
property until her death, consequently they insisted that her 
sacrifice was due to the love she bore her deceased lord, and 



THE WIDOW'S THIRD. 411 

her refusal was often treated with such criticism and abuse 
that it drove the poor woman to the funeral pile. The 
" widow's third " of modern Europe and the United States is 
something essentially different from the widow's life estate in the 
property of her husband. It undoubtedly grew out of a dispo- 
sition to make property a chattel, and to substitute individual 
rights as the representatives of property for the rights of com- 
pact groups of individuals or families. It was to some extent 
a compromise between the rigid Roman law and the ancient 
Aryan custom. Under the Roman law as finally matured, 
parents were under statutory obligations to make settlements 
on their marriageable daughters.* In the Sclavonic household 
and town communities, the daughters were entitled to a settle- 
ment and maintenance. In whatever way it originated the 
"widow's third" has come down to us and prevails in most 
of the states. Kansas is an exception, the widow taking one- 
half of all her husband's property, real and personal. In 
1787 Congress in passing a law for the government of the 
Northwest territory provided for the equal division of 
property among the children and a life rent of "the third" of 
the real estate to the wife. The distribution among descend- 
ants was to be per stirpes, not per capita, but this law merely 
governed intestate cases, as the father could make by will a 
different disposal. The one thing it indicated was hostility to 
the law of primogeniture, but as a principle for the transmis- 
sion of property it was crude and the ideas not original. In 
the past three or four generations there has been a constant 
tendency to the individual control of property. The old cus- 
tom of equal family holding, or of equal rights in property 
inherited, has been as completely invaded by this assertion of 
individual will over accumulated property, as the same sys- 
tem had been by the monopolization of the land by the oldest 
sons, under the law of primogeniture. The inheritance of 

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 336. 



412 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

property lies at the foundation of the state. We have seen 
that in Europe it created an aristocracy constantly increasing 
in wealth and diminishing in numbers. Wise laws of inherit- 
ance may prevent an aristocracy, and in our republic statutes 
should be framed for that purpose. Our laws concede too much 
to individual will in determining the transmission of property 
from one generation to another. It has been urged that a 
father's power to disinherit is a wholesome check on the errors 
of children. This is undoubtedly a mistake. Young men 
or women who have been taught to form, or neglected so that 
they formed, bad habits, are only more entitled to help, and so 
far as the state is concerned a father has no right to create 
privileged classes. Long leases have been effected, the in- 
creased values of which were to inure to the benefit of a man's 
grandchildren even though his own children remain poor. 
All such dispositions of property are against public policy 
and should be prevented by law. Real estate should, in its 
future disposition, never be subject to individual will, but in 
everything governed by a policy of its highest uses for the 
people, and the distinct assertion of the equal rights of every 
person, in every generation, in it. So far as any disposition 
of property to descendants is concerned it ought to be governed 
by rules of perfect equality. One single element of our law 
of inheritance will show how these inequalities have crept 
into it. We divide per stirpes and not per capita. A man 
has accumulated a large fortune and lived to an old age. He 
has, we. will say, two sons. One of these has eight children 
and one has two. The fathers of these children die before the 
grandfather, and are never able to control or inherit any of 
his property. If it was distributed per capita, each of these 
ten grandchildren would get equal portions, but we distribute 
it under our law per stirpes, one-half goes to two grandchil- 
dren and the other half is divided between eight, and all 
these persons bear the same relation to the owner of the prop- 
erty. The tendency of our laws and customs is to the asser- 



POSTHUMOUS DESPOTISM. 413 

tion of the broadest power by the owner of property not only 
while living but after he is dead. To carry out this idea 
more fully, everything, even land, has been reduced to the 
condition of a chattel. That a man should enjoy a large 
liberty, during his lifetime, over property made by him, and 
within the bounds of possible honest acquisition, may be par- 
tially admitted. The assertion of individual will in control- 
ling the disposition of property has been carried too far for the 
public interests. Why should this despotism of one person 
be clung to tenaciously as an American doctrine ? When a 
man dies he has, strictly speaking, but one right, and that is 
to be buried. It is natural that he should wish his wife, his 
'partner, to be comfortably maintained if there is property left. 
This, if he does not do, the law should do for him. Consistent 
with that he should wish that all of his descendants at his 
death should share equally in at least part of what may be 
left to distribute, and if he does not do this the law should do 
it for him. If he has made a large accumulation of personal 
property instead of seeking to perpetuate it in his family, an 
honorable and proper public spirit should lead him in the 
general public interest to give a portion of such remainder for 
necessary public institutions, charities, educational establish- 
ments or relief for the poor, and if he does not do so the law 
should do it for him. This could easily be done by taxation 
on bequests or taxation of estates for these purposes, increasing 
taxation in such ratio at each fresh bequest of the same prop- 
erty until it had melted away, and compelled the third or fourth 
generation at farthest to be entirely self-supporting. The 
writer thinks the public interest would be served by not per- 
mitting it to go beyond the second generation. The other 
side of the question is how far such regulations would effect 
production. A man struggles, toils, submits to privations to 
acquire the means to render himself comfortable and inde- 
pendent in his old age, and to give something to the children 
he loves. If he has not this inducement he would not so 



414 SHADOWS OP ARISTOCRACY. 

struggle to acquire. When a man deliberately contemplates 
making and leaving a fortune for his children so that they 
will never need to work, but be maintained from accumulated 
capital as part of a non-producing class he conspires against 
the public interests. It is more than probable that he also 
conspires against the best interests of his children. To aid 
them in starting in life with a fair prospect ought to be the 
highest stretch of filial or patriotic duty. Hereditary fortunes 
are not only inconsistent with our political institutions, but 
with the public interests and safety. So far as possible our 
laws of inheritance, our tax laws, and our laws to prevent 
fraud and overreaching in business should be framed under a 
fixed and persistent policy, the end of which should be to 
prevent the accumulation of great fortunes and also to prevent 
their perpetuation. Land should never in any sense be sub- 
jected to disposition by will. The sooner we dispossess our 
minds of the idea that land in itself is property the better. 
The right to cultivate it may in some cases be subject to 
transmission. Certain rights in improvements thereon may 
exist, but should never be permitted to become alienating liens. 
Whatever tenure or right of occupancy the state determines 
shall be held in land ought not to be governed by the usual 
laws of inheritance, for a family has no more right to monop- 
olize the land than the individual. Families may desire a 
continuous occupancy, and when their claim covers no more 
than an equitable share, it may be in the public interest to 
give it to them. Sufficiently long tenure must be allowed to 
insure the most productive cultivation and the highest neces- 
sary line of improvements, but in any case subject to the rights 
that all the people possess in the land. It is a favorite theory 
of a modern school of political economists that it makes no 
difference to the public who owns the land, that the only con- 
sideration is under what system will it produce the most. If 
there is abundance of bread, meat and other articles raised 
the public will obtain them. The cheaper they can be pro- 



RENT A TAX ON BREAD AND LABOR. 415 

duced the easier will the public get them. That artisans, 
manufacturers, laborers and tradesmen derive the best advan- 
tages from land in this way, and since all cannot be farmers 
the subject of land ownership is an unimportant one, the only 
question being as to whether those who own or control it will 
have it so conducted as to produce, for the necessities of the 
public, the greatest amount at the lowest price. 

At the first glance this is a seductive theory, but it will not 
bear a moment's scrutiny.} To permit a non-producing class \ 
of citizens to fasten themselves on the land and drain from it 
one-third or one-half of all the produce to maintain an idle 
class in luxury is not a good economic arrangement for the 
producer and consumer. The landlords live on and tax both 
the other classes. Even if all this exacted rent was taken f 
from the wages of the laboring agriculturist, it is not for the 
interest of the artisan, mechanic, craftsman or manufacturer, 
that the agriculturist should be so impoverished as to be / 
unable to buy manufactured articles. It is not for the interest 
of either class that a wealthy aristocracy should be built up to 
undermine their rights, steal their liberties and sentence them, 
their women and their children to be an inferior class in the 
community! It is ^believed that small farms well cultivated 
by resident holders produce more than great farms cultivated 
at wholesale by machinery. In a dense population nothing 
but small farms cultivated, in every nook and corner, with the 
close care of even spade husbandry, can support the people. 
Above all, the happiness, prosperity and independence of the 
laboring agriculturist is a matter of vital importance to all 
other tradesmen. If the face of the earth must be sold, the 
public interests require a policy that will prevent the land 
from becoming high priced or difficult of access to those who 
wish to cultivate the soil. Small farms, slight barriers in the 
way of an interchange of occupations, the destruction of spec- 
ulative values in land, these are in the line of the highest and 
best public economy. 



416 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

The question has been asked, Has government any right to 
interfere with the accumulations of the individual ? It has 
also been said that the legitimate business of government is to 
keep the peace, prevent robbery and murder, and otherwise 
let men alone. The highest function of government is to 
preserve life, property and reputation. Life cannot be pre- 
served when the conditions necessary to maintain life are 
unscrupulously and grossly violated. Would we consider the 
man a more cruel murderer who runs a knife in the heart 
of his victim in a moment of anger, or the man who by 
selfish, unfair and dishonest practices starves his fellow man 
or drives him to despair and destruction ? The law-making 
public is indeed concerned in preserving the lives of all 
men. That public is also concerned in seeing that the bodies 
of men are not exposed to slow starvation, physical dis- 
eases or moral corruption. Man owes his fellow man more 
than "mere civility" and society cannot fully protect life 
without protecting all the conditions of the highest life at- 
tainable. 

Property rights cannot be protected until we ascertain to 
whom the property honestly belongs. No one would argue 
the propriety of defending a thief's right. Shall the high- 
wayman and pirate come into court to demand protection for 
their acquisitions? Shall the gains of fraud and deception be 
maintained to the detriment of those who honestly earned the 
proceeds of labor. In making the protection of property one 
of the first duties of law, we should regulate by it every ques- 
tion touching the interests and rights of property. Civilization 
is infested with a class of unscrupulous and avaricious persons 
who make enormous fortunes that could not be acquired by 
honest labor or perfectly honorable mercantile transactions ; 
make them, in fact, by tricks, unfair concealments, misrepre- 
sentations, conspiracies, selling things for what they are not, 
or for more than their worth, and having thus acquired great 
wealth are loud in their declarations that organized society and 



DIGNITY OF A FREEMAN. 417 

laws exist but to protect them in their possession of such gains. 
Society is organized for the equal protection of all its members, 
and its duty in regard to property is to see that those who 
really made it are protected in its use. 

Reputation calls for protection quite as much as life. This 
public trust has not always been faithfully executed. The 
assassin of reputation should be promptly and severely pun- 
ished. Society also owes it to the honest laboring masses that 
their position be maintained as honorable among men. Those 
who are compelled to perform long hours of arduous toil, who 
have barely a sufficiency of coarse food, and are sheltered with 
their families in one or two small, ill-ventilated rooms, are 
scarcely in a position to maintain themselves with that respect- 
ability that ought to be enjoyed by the laboring American 
citizen. 

When we reflect that the average duration of a generation 
is about thirty-three years, and that once in that period or, at 
most in a few years longer, all the accumulated wealth of the 
country changes hands, we see one of the portentous influences 
which, under wise law may preserve property in equal por- 
tions, or found an aristocracy. It will readily be admitted 
that property inherited and property accumulated from toil 
and saving, stand on a slightly different basis. That which a 
man fairly produces by his labor he is usually tenaciously 
inclined to claim the right to dispose of. Where he saves it 
and adds it to the accumulated wealth of the community he 
desires and during his life he may be allowed to control it, 
subject, however, always to the interests and safety of the state. 
"When he seeks to make some disposition of it which shall, 
after he is dead, aifect the interests and well being of the state, 
other questions and other interests come in. It is not just that 
one man should toil and live penuriously in order that another 
may live in luxurious idleness. When a misused life, human 
cunning and ingenuity are devoted to such a task, laAVS should 
be framed to render such self-immolation unprofitable and 



418 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

unsuccessful. The new generation has earned nothing. It 
is the duty of every man as a faithful and patriotic citizen 
to perform his share of labor and produce something which 
shall be a fair equivalent for the food he eats and the clothes 
he wears. Assuming the right to build up independent for- 
tunes for those who never earn them is assuming the right to 
create an aristocracy. So long as we permit and encourage 
the greatly cumulative power of money through usury, we 
multiply the opportunities that aid in building up such a sys- 
tem. A dollar if permitted to run at compound interest would, 
in a certain number of years, absorb all the accumulated wealth 
of the world. To get a closer illustration, Mr. Spofford, as 
we have quoted, places the value of property in 1880 in the 
United States at $43,642,000,000 (forty-three billion six 
hundred and forty-two million). There is that amount of 
wealth outside of labor, a fixed capital, to use or inherit. Now 
while money loaned on short time on commercial paper may 
be obtained for three, four, five or six per cent, per annum in 
these United States, the laboring man does not borrow much 
at less than eight or ten per cent. If all accumulated capital 
produced equally at eight per cent, there would have to be 
taken out of the product of labor in each year the sum of three 
billion, four hundred and ninety-one million, three hundred 
and sixty thousand dollars, before labor could pay the debt 
due accumulated capital. At four per cent., interest on this 
property would amount in each year, to one billion seven 
hundred and forty-five million, six hundred and eighty 
thousand dollars, or five and one-third times the revenue of 
the government of the United States for 1884. In 1884 the 
total domestic exports of the United States was $775,190,- 
487.00. In other words, it would have taken all the exports 
of the United States for two and one-third years to pay four 
per cent, interest for one year on the accumulated capital of the 
United States. Mr. Spofford gives the total amount paid in 
wages in 1884 in all the manufacturing establishments of the 



DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF INTEREST. 419 

United States, at $947,91 9,647.00.* It Avould require nearly 
twice as much to pay four per cent, interest on the accumulated 
capital in the United States. We find by consulting a table 
of the same gentleman, compiled from official returns, that the 
" estimated value of all farm productions, sold, consumed, or 
on hand for 1879 was $2,213,402,564, f a large part of 
which would have been required if we were to pay four per 
cent, per annum on all the accumulated capital in the United 
States. These figures demonstrate that all of the accumulated 
capital does not add to itself four per cent, on its value each 
year. If it did it would soon cripple labor and production, 
and in a very few years at most destroy them. The same 
thing would happen which Mr. Edward Atkinson thinks will 
necessarily happen to a large portion of the national debts of 
Europe before the end of fifteen years. He certainly cannot 
be accused of conspiring against the rights of property. In 
his preface to a recent book, he says,{ " Since the beginning 
of the present century the public debts of Europe have in- 
creased from two billion six hundred million dollars to twenty 
billion dollars. This debt has been accompanied by the issue 
in many states of paper substitutes for money, and either by 
that method, or some other summary way, the repudiation of 
a large part of it may become a necessity before the end of the 
century." In other words, a paper debt, no inconsiderable 
portion of which never represented anything, has been at work 
in the multiplying process until it threatens itself with destruc- 
tion. "Well might Mr. Atkinson say on the same page, " So 
long as such a debt exists it works a false distribution of 
wealth," and he quotes, "One of the greatest living statesmen 
of England said her national debt was the chief cause of her 
pauperism." Let us reflect that we, too, have an immense 
inflated paper capital professing to represent railway, tele- 

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 30. f Ibid., page 373. 
% Atkinson's Distribution of Products, page 4, Preface. 



420 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY. 

graph, municipal, insurance and mercantile stock, and an end- 
less variety of paper wealth, all of it calling for interest and 
dividends. "As long as this exists " it " works a false dis- 
tribution of wealth." The foregoing* criticism applies to our 
banking system. Mne-tenths of the business of the country 
is carried on by checks, drafts, certificates of deposit, bills, 
acceptances and other paper. While a part of this represents 
a tangible something no inconsiderable part of it does not. 
It is a paper credit system kept afloat by dealers in money. 
Every now and then there is a panic which tumbles many 
palaces of card board and paralyzes .business, throwing wage 
workers out of employment. Even when the banks do not 
break, many men are drawing interest on their debts. The 
rates of interest for bank accommodations are lower in the 
Eastern states than in the West. In the latter eight, ten, 
twelve, and even twenty per cent, have been paid. It might be 
a better plan to pay the brokers a small percentage for taking 
care of money. The alleged advantage of permitting bankers 
to loan other people's money is that the circulating medium 
is thus not locked up, but relieves the necessities of many 
business men. A safer mode would be to organize companies 
or co-operative societies of workingmen, for manufactures 
as well as trade, and all the surplus money possessed by them, 
as well as their credit, could be used to carry on the business 
without a drain of interest to middlemen. By the present sys- 
tem a percentage is taken out of each manufactured article, 
and in this way reduces the wages of workingmen, as it is 
classed with the cost of production. It is no part of the policy 
of a capitalist employer to combine with other capitalists to 
keep up the price of labor. The cheaper he can buy labor 
the better he can undersell. We hear many complaints from 
employers and speculators of this class that their business does 
not pay, or that the profits are insufficient. If we compare 
the condition of the merchant and manufacturing princes, their 
magnificent houses and equipages, with the condition of their 



DIRECTING ENERGY. 421 

wage workers, we can easily see the untruth of such complaints. 
Their profits may not quite come up to their avaricious desires 
or unbridled ambition, but are sufficient to prove that it is 
only through organizations of workingmen to control business 
that the laborers can obtain a fair share. Mr. Mallock says 
that great wealth is produced by two things, machinery and 
the power of directing labor and capital. He intimates that if 
these get the lion's share they are entitled to it. Let us 
see. Machinery has been a contribution of genius for the 
benefit of the race, and after giving cerfain profits for a few 
years to the inventors, these inventions become public property. 
There is certainly no reason why they should be monopolized 
by capitalists to the detriment of the laborer, and that is just 
what has happened. Machinery should give corresponding 
benefit to all portions of society. Let us consider the " direct- 
ing power " as an element of wealth. The "directing power," 
we take notice, is usually " intelligent " enough to direct to itself 
the lion's share. There is, perhaps, no instance on record 
where the " directing power " took an income for personal 
expenses equal to the amount paid an intelligent mechanic. 
This " directing power " of Mr. Mallock's is the very thing 
that requires regulating. Its profits should not be permitted 
to exceed a fair compensation, and " management " is not a 
sufficient apology for impoverishing the workman to amass 
a great fortune for the manager. The elements of pro- 
duction to-day are labor, capital and machinery. The existence 
of machinery ought to inure to the benefit of the laboring 
class except the mere amount to purchase and keep it in 
working order. The share of capital in production must be 
subordinate to the interests of labor. Usury ought to be under 
the ban of law. Capital is of two kinds. The capital which 
is produced for use and used by the man who owns it, such as 
houses, cattle, horses, vehicles, furniture, machinery, &c. 
Then there is the capital a man has accumulated that he 
does not personally need or use. Out of this he expects to 
36 



i 



422 SHADOWS OF AEISTOCRACY. 

make an income from those he permits to use it. This is the 
kind of capital that requires the supervision of the public, or 
it will impoverish all labor and create an aristocracy among 
men. This is the kind of capital which in the complicated 
civilization of modern times has grown to be, not the third 
but the first estate. It has created in our day what is the 
essence of all aristocracy — a class thriving on the labor of 
others. Ancient nations of power and character have legis- 
lated against this evil. There never has been a period when 
surplus capital possessed the power, consideration or profitable 
resources enjoyed by it to-day. Let it not be said that we 
overthrew King George to crown the "Almighty dollar." 

It may be said if we place discouragements and obstacles 
in the avenues through which men make great fortunes, that 
these fortunes will not be accumulated. We reply that it is 
not for the public interest that they should be accumulated. 
It has been said that if capital is restricted it will not be able 
to infuse great activity into manufacture, and we respond that 
capital should never control manufacture. The rarest artistic 
skill is the gift of the mechanic ; the division of profits has been 
the task of the capitalist director. The public are not so much 
concerned in the proposition how one million can be made into 
twenty millions as in the prosperity, comfort and independence 
of the working masses. Law should first sift out pretended 
capital from real, and useful articles of capital from mere blood- 
sucking capital. In measuring the profits of surplus wealth 
the only safe standard can be its benefits to the laborer, and 
as a preliminary we should see that men do not draw interest 
from their debts. It matters not what they may be called, non- 
producing classes are an aristocracy. That aristocracy not 
only taxes but degrades labor. A competency honestly earned 
to be expended in old age is the just fruit of an honorable life. 
All else must be subject to restrictions. The lines of distinc- 
tion between rich and poor have become almost as exclusive 
as caste in India. The dominion of morals should be as potent 



DIGNITY OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 423 

in preserving human happiness as the dominion of business or 
law. Let us, therefore, foster an American spirit of equality 
and simplicity, so that a useful and honorable man, no mat- 
ter how poor, will be respected as one of our worthiest and 
best citizens. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

REMEDIES. 

Is the body politic disordered — Great wealth cannot insure national sta- 
bility — Inequality in condition steadily developing — Workers not getting 
their share — What has caused the unequal distribution of wealth — In 
the early republic no great millionaires and few beggars — Number of 
monopolies embraced in land monopoly — Allodial title — Two pleas for 
rent — Can improvements constitute an alienating lien — Bastiat — The 
natural and indestructible powers of the soil — What rights in land are 
in accord with public policy — Length of tenure necessary to secure high 
improvements — Land should only be held by occupying cultivators — 
Reduction of farms with increase of population — Money should be refused 
speculating investment in land, or investment to secure rent — Henry 
George's plan — Tax and rent must not be permitted to increase the price 
of bread and meat — Tax must come out of accumulated capital — Large 
farms and landholders — Land speculation and wholesale farming should 
be taxed out of existence— The destruction of artificial land values no 
calamity — What is just and what is practicable — Cyrus Field and Henry 
George — Timber lands — Grazing lands — Mineral lands — Railroad land 
grants — Various communal experiments — Mormonism — Icaria — Robert 
Owen — Fourierism — Shakers — Oneida perfectionists — Individualism and 
socialism — How are wages to be raised — Combination and organization — 
Law, the servant of labor — Assassination and dynamite the suicide of 
labor interests — What is the legitimate business of government — How to 
control railroad and other corporations — Justice but not pauperism — 
Public improvements — Homes for workingmen — Will-making and in- 
heritance. 

When a physician has been called to minister to a sick 
person, his first purpose is to discover the disease with which 
the patient is afflicted and then the steps to be taken to insure 
a return to health. We have at the present moment in these 
United States a good many physicians who are trying to 
make a diagnosis of the diseased body politic and various 
424 



IS THE BODY POLITIC DISORDERED ? 425 

remedies have been proposed. Quite a number declare that 
the disorder is merely hypochondria and that it exists only in 
the imagination. To the charge that there are inherent evils, 
imbedded in our land system they reply that land is free to 
all in the United States, easy of access and easy of disposi- 
tion, none are deprived of it and none are bound to it ; and 
when it is urged that laborers are poor and becoming poorer, 
they reply that wages are higher in the United States than in 
most countries, and that if laborers are poor it is their own 
fault. It is, therefore, a debatable question whether or not 
affairs are in a healthy and prosperous state, and the republic, 
organized to secure the permanent interests, on a perfectly 
equitable basis, socially, economically and politically of all its 
citizens, now and hereafter. Many have grave doubts as to 
the future condition of the people under the social and busi- 
ness relations of society we are establishing. A hundred 
years ago, when our government was formed, the United 
States contained but little more than three millions of people 
and has now between fifty and sixty millions. Should it 
continue to increase in the same ratio for another hundred 
years our population would exceed that of Chiua. We have 
endeavored to point out the fate of the working classes in 
many great nations. We have seen that evidences of splendor 
and power do not secure a permanent state or popular happi- 
ness, t The history of most of these nations show us that as 
communities aggregate great wealth the people become divided l 
into rich and poor, this disparity is rendered more striking and 
acute in highly artificial and luxurious forms of society. The 
causes of this difference of condition spring from the avari- 
cious and aggressive spirit of a few members of society. The 
oppression of the poor has usually been brought about by 
violence, or long years of cunuing, chicanery and fraud. 
We find in many states of society that wicked laws and 
customs have sanctioned slavery and combinations of men 
have made servants of a great number of their fellow crea- 



426 REMEDIES. 

tures. We also find that by conspiracy, treachery and 
murder, men called kings with their confederates organize 
what they call a government in order that they may be better 
able to plunder mankind and carry on war, thus placing whole 
countries under their dishonest and despotic feet. Certain 
individuals succeed in securing peculiar privileges and monop- 
olies from unwise and tyrannical governments, by which 
they are able to extort from their brothers a large proportion 
of their earnings, creating a modified kind of slavery. ■' We 
observe in other conditions of society, possessors of accumu- 
lated wealth preying upon the poor and needy, taking advantage 
of their wants and necessities to impoverish them as wage 
workers, paying them only what will purchase poor food and 
shabby clothing for that labor, the produce of which enables 
the capitalist to continue and extend this phase of slavery. 
Thus in all forms of human society and at every period of 
which we have a record, there have been numbers of selfish, 
violent and unscrupulous men continually striving to enrich 
themselves at the expense of others. This they have always 
done, and this, we may take it for granted, they always will 
do if they are permitted. ! For all these abuses the only reme- 
dies must come from enlightened law or revolution. The 
majority can never safely assent to injustice against the weakest 
member of society, or carelessly permit privilege to a few. 

When we contemplate the growing inequality of condition 
of the people of these United States, we discover that the 
"inalienable right" to " Life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness," has been and is being subverted. In the 
earlier history of the republic, so far as the white population 
was concerned, this inequality was not so great. In primi- 
tive times in the United States, and, indeed, for nearly half 
of its existence, great fortunes were almost unknown, and 
beggars were so rare that people considered it a privilege 
to give to them. Now there is a great change, and that 
change is steadily and rapidly progressing. As the accumu- 



UNEMPLOYED AND TRAMPS. 427 

Iated wealth of the nation increases, the distinction between 
rich and poor widens. The remuneration paid to wage 
workers is so small that it affords little opportunity to save, 
or provide means of support during enforced idleness or for 
the necessities of old age. Every now and then large num- 
bers of able and worthy citizens and laborers are thrown out 
of work. Tramps increase until our lawmakers go back to 
the days of Queen Elizabeth to find models for statutes 
against them. Numberless useful inventions simplify manu- 
facture and render the production of every needful thing easier, 
but they do not lighten the burdens of the laboring poor or 
add to their wages ; on the contrary the profits of machinery 
only increase the number and enhance the riches of the non- 
producing class. It is useless to deny that all these facts 
exist. In spite of our wealth and advantages, the circum- 
stances of our wage workers are not improving. Possessors 
of a competence may complacently deny it, and say that the 
dissatisfaction among laboring men, strikes and all the mur- 
murs at the burdens of rent and the inequalities of society, 
are merely the turbulence of demagogues promulgating social- 
istic and agrarian theories. Political economists of the Bi- 
cardo school tell us that capital produces wealth, and con- 
sequently takes the greatest share of it, and that this is 
the natural and just condition of society. Contracts rule 
and "a bargain's a bargain every part." Competition for 
shares of the proceeds of labor they argue is the mainspring of 
society. The weak and the strong, the wise and the simple, 
the selfish and unselfish, the cunning arid the straightforward, 
the honest and dishonest, all must join in this avaricious 
scramble, and each take what he is able to get, and what he 
gets is the just measure of his deserts. According to them, 
it is in violation of all sound doctrine for law to step in be- 
tween a laborer and his employer. Government only inter- 
feres with and hinders the " eternal law of trade " when it 
endeavors to fix the hours or price of labor. They contend 



428 REMEDIES. 

that law attempts to do an unphilosophic thing when it tries 
to regulate interest, or presumes to denounce the cumulative 
additions of capital as " usury." They pronounce the doctrine 
that man is entitled to " Life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness," a mere " glittering generality," and declare with 
Malthus that " man has not a right to subsistence when his 
labor will not fairly purchase it."* Lastly, we have the 
doctrine of Professor Sumner, that man owes his fellow man 
nothing " but civility " ; that man is not a social being de- 
pendent largely on his fellows, but that individual rights, 
individual interests, and the measure of individual power, 
have, in this modern dispensation, swept brotherhood away. 

In spite of such assumptions the body politic is diseased 
to this extent, that the men who do the hard work are not 
getting their share of the increasing property in the country. 
It is equally true that privileged classes are being created in 
this " land of equality " by the unequal distribution of wealth 
and the unnatural accumulation of large fortunes. The 
writer differs from some authors on the subject, in that he 
does not consider these evils solely attributable to the monop- 
olization of land, although that has much to do with them. 
The land system we have permitted in this country is, indeed, 
very bad, but its worst evils have not yet had time to develop 
themselves. As far west as the Mississippi river, the land 
is, indeed, monopolized, and a great deal of it beyond that 
river ; but as there is still public land to buy or locate, the 
worst troubles from land monopoly are yet to come. What 
has already happened may be summed up under two heads : 
First, the amount of land already monopolized in the heavily 
populated states has, on account of its being restricted to cer- 
tain individuals and the increasing demands of a great popu- 
lation, risen enormously in value. This " unearned incre- 
ment " our law and custom have conceded to be the property 

* Malthus' Principles of Population, page 421. 



AMERICAN WORKERS BECOMING HOMELESS. 429 

of the men to whom these special privileges were given ; and 
this, as Mr. Atkinson would say, " works a false distribution 
of wealth." The second evil is : that the high price thus 
created in favor of the monopolists has made land so dear 
that poor people cannot buy it. This condition of affairs has 
converted the poor men who wish to use land or houses into 
renters, and those who own land into non -producers. An 
incidental evil is that where the working man, who raises 
grain, has only to support his own family, he can afford to 
sell produce cheaper, but where he has to support a landlord 
and his family for the privilege of cultivating the soil, bread 
and meat become dearer. In this way, when men who do 
not cultivate the soil are permitted to buy or* to own it, there 
is merely sold to them the privilege of exacting from it and 
through it a perpetual tax on meat and bread. Before the 
producer can use his crop there must be taken from it a large 
portion to support a non-productive class. This tax en- 
hances the price of what is produced, and it is a tax the 
poorest man cannot escape. In the earlier clays of the repub- 
lic nearly every man owned his own home, whether it was a 
house and lot or a farm ; now a large part of wages go 
toward rent. If an artisan or mechanic is dissatisfied with 
his wages and condition he may still, provided he has the 
money to carry himself West, go to a few Western states and 
territories and become a farmer. This, however, is frequently 
accomplished with great difficulty. The " free competition " 
between a wage worker and an employer in our Eastern cities 
is anything but fair. With the capitalist employer it is a 
proposition between a greater and a less amount of profit, with 
the laborer between taking what his employer will give him 
and starving to death. 

The monopoly of land is the worst, and most far reaching 
special privilege ever granted to individuals. It includes the 
monopoly of coal for fuel, timber for building, petroleum 
and light, salt, and every building material. There is noth- 



430 REMEDIES, 

ing a man eats or uses that is not taxed by this monopoly. 
Strictly speaking, land is not, and never has been property, 
it is simply privilege. Brentano asks : " What is land but 
an opportunity to get an income ? " * 

" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou 
return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken ; for 
dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." f The human 
race is indeed a portion of the earth. The flesh and bones 
of myriads of human beings who have passed away are in- 
corporated with it. The bodies of myriads yet to come will 
spring therefrom. All men cultivated land originally or 
obtained their living from it. Did the fact that a man cul- 
tivated any portion of the globe give him any individual 
right to it. Let us see. It was necessary that man should 
obtain a temporary use of the soil, to produce corn from it 
for his family. This, then, being an absolute necessity, car- 
ried some kind of right with it. Did it carry an exclusive 
right, and if so, on what ground, and for how long ? In the 
introductory chapter we have shown that claims to own or 
control a portion of the earth have only been recognized as 
rights emanating from governments. Aggregations of men 
claim a country. We have seen that by the law and custom 
of the Aryan race, from w T hich sprang the nations of modern 
Europe and the people of these United States, that they 
originally regarded the land as common property. Allodial 
title measured the uses of the earth. The tillable land was 
fenced, broken and put in shape to produce crops, by the joint 
labor of all. Each family had an equal interest in it. Every 
member of each family an equal share. It was the same 
with the pasture land and unimproved forest. As population 
increased other acres were added to it, fresh colonies made, or 
the old land equally subdivided. In each generation no one 

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 128. 
t Gen. iii. 19. 






DOCTRINE OF RENT. 431 

was permitted to have more than his share. There was no 
room for monopoly, and none for land speculation. The man 
of the preceding could not say to the man of a new genera- 
tion, who had been born and grown up : " This is mine ; I 
improved the share I hold ; it was accorded to me. You 
have no part or lot in it. You must find a new place for 
yourself." Such action would have been a monopoly growing 
out of a limited, recognized right. It would have been the 
monopoly of one generation against another. The holder 
might have claimed the right to give it to one of his sons to 
the exclusion of all his other children. The law and custom 
originally said this he should not do. This equal occupancy, 
in which there was no special privilege, no monopoly, was, 
undoubtedly, the ancient mode of holding and cultivating 
land. Then rent was unknown, and the "Doctrine of rent" 
unheard of. It would have been impossible to apply even 
Mr. Francis Walker's rendition of Ricardo's doctrine : " Rent 
arises from the fact of the varying degrees of productiveness 
in the lands actually contributing to the supply of the same 
market, the least productive land paying no rent, or a rent so 
small that it may be treated as none. The rent of all the 
higher grades of land is measured upward from this line, 
the rent from each piece absorbing all the excess of produce 
above that of the no rent land." * Among our Aryan ances- 
tors there was no one authorized to collect rent on any pre- 
text. There was no class living* on rent. There was no 
generation attempting to put the use of the land out of the 
reach of succeeding generations. 

There are two claims for the right to exact rent. First, 
that there was a man in some one generation who found a 
tract no one else was occupying, and took possession of it and 
held it by right of first discovery. Such is the theory on 
which all preemptors', squatters' and " first holders ' " rights are 

* Land and its Kent, page 21. 



432 REMEDIES. 

founded. Strange, although it may appear, the doctrine is 
not without its supporters. This title, if asserted by an indi- 
vidual man, not connected with any government or organized 
society, would be good until two other men came along, or 
even one, bigger and stronger than he was, who should dis- 
possess him. To be good for anything, therefore, this " right 
of discovery " must be recognized by a government strong 
enough to protect the claimant in it. The government or 
organization is society, the union of all, the whole. It exists 
to protect the rights of all. There is no other apology for its 
existence. How shall " the whole " grant a monoply to one 
or two on the pretext that it is for the interests of the whole? 
We have seen that when the primitive forms of society 
acted on the land question they never allowed individual 
claims to spring up. The ownership of the few asserted 
against the many is a comparatively modern contrivance. 
The right of a man to cultivate a piece of unclaimed land 
amounts just to this : his temporary use of it cannot destroy the 
rights other men have in it. It can give him no moral claim 
to it for an indefinite period. Other men have as much right 
to live upon the earth as he has. If one man can drive 
another from the part of the earth's surface he claims, the 
poor landless man can, in the same way, be driven from 
every foot of the earth. He has in fact no right to live, and 
the very privilege of living must be obtained from another. 
No government or form of* society has a right to create such 
a monopoly. The highest interests of society demand that 
such an attempt be set aside. Neither has any government 
or form of society the right to create a privileged class, who, 
on the pretext of owning the land, shall exact an income, to 
be paid by all succeeding generations to their heirs and assigns 
before the people of any generation can be allowed to live on 
it. This, whatever it may be called, is landed aristocracy 
and is obnoxious to the principles of the American govern- 
ment. 



REMUNERATION FOR IMPROVEMENTS. 433 

The other claim for the right to exact rent is that improve- 
ments have been placed on the land, and that it took so much 
capital to make the land productive, that the person expend- 
ing it acquires a right to the land. This claim to have the 
perpetual ownership of the ground on account of improvements 
placed thereon is also a modern idea. In China, parts of 
India and other countries where the equal right of all to the 
land is recognized, improvements are never permitted to be- 
come an alienating lien upon it. In China, for instance, 
when the changing floods on the rivers have produced a piece 
of land not previously in cultivation, a man applies to the 
local authorities for the right to improve it. He is allowed 
to take it and is awarded the use of it for a few years, usually 
two, tax free, for breaking it in. At the end of that period 
it is subject to the same conditions as the other land in the 
country. The East Indian mode is much the same. With 
many it is claimed that improvements constitute ownership. 
One defender of the individual right to hold land went so far 
as to say that an acre of cultivated ground was as much a 
manufactured article as a yard of cloth. If a man seized 
wool, jointly owned by him and ten others, he could scarcely 
pretend that weaving it gave him an individual title to the 
cloth. Mr. Walker draws a distinction. He says : " We 
note, then, that what shall be paid for the use of land may 
consist of two parts, rent proper, the remuneration for what 
Ricardo called the original and indestructible powers of the 
soil ; and fictitious rent, which is in truth nothing but interest 
upon capital invested." * We lay it down as a fundamental 
maxim that no man has a right to sell or rent the "original 
and indestructible powers of the soil." The government that 
undertakes to give to him the power to do this commits an 
outrage on the people. The interest a man may have in im- 
provements placed on the soil is something different, as Gen- 

* Land and its Rent, page 35. 
37 



434 REMEDIES. 

eral Walker correctly states; that this latter should ever be 
permitted to assume the proportions of a permanent lien is a 
monstrous proposition. M. Bastiat says, " If rent is paid fur 
the indestructible powers of the soil, then, indeed, landed 
property is robbery." Bastiat founded his theory of rent, or 
property in land, on the ground of "service" rendered. The 
man who used the property, or paid the rent, did so because 
the property was more valuable to him for the service ren- 
dered on it. In examining the question as to the ownership 
of improvements on land, it is necessary to keep certain facts 
distinctly before the mind. A man's property is in the im- 
provements, not the land. Improvements are made with the 
expectation that they will render it more productive. The 
proper remuneration, therefore, comes from the increased pro- 
duction. How much of a title can a man derive from im- 
provements ? To this we emphatically answer, not any. As 
the land equally belonged to all in the first place, he must 
have derived, by common consent, the right to improve and 
use. Without permitting improvements to escheat land, it 
is proper between the man who puts improvements on land 
and the community, that he should be allowed a sufficient 
length of time to use it to pay him for his improvements out of 
the proceeds, or a sufficient length of time in which he could 
be reimbursed if he managed the business well. This, how- 
ever, would not give him, in equity, the right to improve or 
use one foot more of the land than would be his share if the 
whole was divided among the community. If he takes more 
he is deriving benefits from what belongs to somebody else. 
A retired " Tenant Farmer" in England, who writes "Short 
Talks about Land Tenures," says, that on a twenty years' 
lease, at a fixed rent, the tenant besides paying his rent can 
pay for all the improvements he puts on land so as to make 
it in the highest degree productive. One of the Kansas wheat 
farmers, Mr. Henry, of Abilene, informed the writer that he 
could buy land for ten dollars per acre, pay for the breaking, 



VALUE OF IMPROVEMENTS. 435 

harrowing and all the expenses of raising the first two crops 
of wheat, and out of the produce pay for the land and have a 
margin of profit. 

Let us take a piece of government land at $1.25 per acre. 
Breaking prairie, costing we will say two and a half dollars 
per acre, and then the expense of seed, harrowing, drilling and 
harvesting the first crop of wheat. It certainly would require 
at that rate only a few years to pay for the land, improve- 
ments, and even for such buildings as are usually erected. 
In the old style of forest or woodland clearing, where the 
land was fenced, the improvements were estimated, when 
the writer was a lad, at not exceeding ten dollars per acre. 
The rental of such improved lands in earlier times was 
about two dollars per acre. It would not thus take many 
years to remunerate the man who made them for these im- 
provements. Indeed, it may very safely be asserted that at 
the end of ten years, the owners would have paid for the 
improvements and if the farm was well managed would have 
a large margin of profit. It is also probable that unless these 
farms were much better managed than they have generally 
been, a person about to occupy and cultivate them would pre- 
fer to have the land in its rich, wild, natural state than to take 
it worn out, with decaying fences and houses that would cost 
more to repair than they are worth. Again, men in our 
towns and cities lease lots to build houses on. I have in my 
mind a long row of brick houses built on twenty years' 
leases. One of these a double three-story building is erected 
and a ground rent paid of $600 per year. At the end of 
twenty years the property and improvements revert to the 
owner of the lot. Before the lease the land had produced 
nothing. It was improved in this manner because the city 
was rapidly increasing in population. The person leasing 
showed the writer his figures, by which after deducting for 
insurance and repairs he had the part of the building he occu- 
pied rent free, and would receive sufficient on the remainder 



436 KEMEDIES. 

to pay his $600 ground rent and also for the erection of the 
building in eight years. Allowing a certain percentage for 
times when rent might not be paid, he made his calculation 
of having a free use of one portion and paying the improve- 
ments in ten years at least, leaving him the proceeds of the 
second ten years for profit. These figures give some idea of 
the value of improvements. On what plea then can the mere 
improver of land appropriate the "unearned increment." 
Improvements, therefore, justly give no title to land. The 
maker places them on it at his own risk and must be paid 
for them only out of the increased product caused by them. 
This drives us back for a right to tax land, an annual continu- 
ous rent, to the right one man has to sell the " natural and 
indestructible powers of the soil." 

It has been urged as the strongest argument for a chattel 
title to land, and for perpetual ownership by one family, that 
under a less certain tenure valuable improvements will not be 
made. The evidence submitted proves this to be a fallacy. 
Some of the firms longest occupied in the United States are 
far from indicating continuous improvement of the highest 
order, while, on the other hand, a mere chattel holding by 
unoccupying owners has done more to retard improvement 
throughout the country than anything else. It is equally true 
that occupying tenures, leases, or rights covering one or a few 
years, offer no inducements to make the best improvements, 
and will not secure pay for them, while yearly tenancy, me- 
tayage, or short leases, only tend to waste the natural powers 
of the soil. A law securing family holding, for occupancy 
and use, if framed carefully so as not to interfere with the 
rights of others, might be the best. The small farm holdings 
in France indicate a high order of improvement, as concerns 
productive tillage and home comforts. Some little is due, and 
as much as justice would warrant should be given to the affec- 
tion a family may have for hom'e. It is the inevitable, and 
not unfortunate condition of the race that a large family on 



A FAMILY HOMESTEAD. 437 

reaching manhood and womanhood branches out from the 
domestic roof. The pride of maintaining the old family home- 
stead in one of the sons is apt to lead to injustice to his breth- 
ren and sisters, or pecuniary embarrassment to him. This 
family attachment to places is not very strong in our country, 
and however much we may respect the sentiment should never 
be permitted to become a monopoly usurping more than the 
natural share of a family, thus preventing others from having 
a home. To secure the best improvements there must be 
adequate security that they will be repaid at what they are 
fairly worth. Cultivating owners of small farms may possess 
the best improvements and processes, but under such a system 
we need not expect, and should not deplore, the absence of 
aristocratic palaces, patrician lawns and deer parks, or mag- 
nificence sustained by lordly revenues. 

It will be asserted that in the United States the land was 
bought and paid for, and that government fairly conveyed it 
to the individual owners "forever." Admit the lack of 
wisdom in the transaction. Admit that it was a usurpation 
of power for the men of one generation to forestall or rob the 
men of the next generation. Admit the plea that the price 
was altogether inadequate, and that the public have a right to 
go into court and claim exemption from the oppressive bur- 
dens of this agreement on the ground of " want of consider- 
ation." The question remains, how far have these transactions 
embarrassed a just settlement between man and man? In 
Europe the case is somewhat different. There the aristocratic 
owners got possession by violence and fraud. They did not 
get what they call their land by consent of the legitimate 
owners, the people, at any time. They endeavor to fortify 
their position by the plea that some of the land lias gone into 
the hands of innocent purchasers, and that, therefore, the 
whole system should be still longer tolerated ; they forget 
that the purchaser could buy nothing but what a robber had 
to sell. 



438 REMEDIES. 

Iu the United States it will be said that the matter stands 
on a different footing. Let us examine this. The bulk of 
the land was sold for about $1.25 per acre. A great deal of 
it has been granted in homesteads on the payment of trifling 
fees. For forty years, or since the passage of the preemption 
law it has been sold chiefly for occupation and actual settle- 
ment. This was part of the contract and anything else was 
an evasion of the nominal terms. When sold for one dollar 
and a quarter per acre the government did not pretend to 
part with it for what it was intrinsically worth. That was 
really a mere fee to pay for the extinguishment of the Indian 
occupancy right, for surveying it, for protecting it from 
savages by the United States troops, and for making and 
keeping records. 

Land in its original state, as conveyed by the United 
States in new states and territories was comparatively value- 
less. Its only value at first was to use and cultivate. Its 
speculative value grew out of the increased population of the 
country. It might be worth only ten cents an acre when 
there were a few thousand people in a state or territory, and 
worth one hundred dollars an acre when there were one or 
two millions. The difference is what John Stuart Mill calls 
" unearned increment " and he said the national legislature 
would be justified in appropriating it for the benefit of the 
whole people who created it. Again, it may be not unfairly 
argued that the government turned it into the hands of indi- 
viduals to cultivate on payment of $1.25 per acre at a time, 
and under circumstances so far as the body politic was con- 
cerned, when there was still an abundance of land for every 
other man to take. It Avas not a monopoly under these 
circumstances. In many states such conditions have passed 
away, and in all of them they will soon pass away, and this 
privilege granted for a trifle may, and is certain to be an 
oppressive monopoly. It is an engine daily becoming more 
destructive to the public interests. We are then justified 



LANDHOLDING BY CAPITALISTS. 439 

in assuming that the " eminent domain " in all these lands is 
in the people of these United States, — that it was bought 
subject to that power ? That it was bought subject to the 
right of the people to tax it as they pleased? That it was 
bought subject to the right of the people to make such dispo- 
sition of all or any portion of it, as the public interests or 
safety demanded ? That it was bought subject to the provi- 
sion that the people had the right to enact laws of inheritance 
that would work a "fair distribution" of it, and that, in law 
and equity, the interests of the great body politic transcend 
now and always, the private rights of the individual ? 

There is another, a more intricate, and a graver question. 
We recognize two kinds of accumulated property, " real " 
and " personal," the former land, the earth's* surface, the latter 
articles of manufactured or produced property and money. 
Should accumulated money ever be permitted an investment 
in land ? or an investment in land a man does not buy to 
cultivate, but from which he and his heirs expect to derive a 
perpetual revenue? Granting this power in our form of 
civilization has been a fatal mistake. In the first place, 
giving such a privileged monopoly adds to the profits of 
accumulated capital, raises the rate of interest, weakens the 
resources of the poor laborer, and extends the power and in- 
fluence of money. When, in addition, capital is permitted 
to appropriate the " unearned increment," or increased value 
caused by population and the exclusive privileges of this sys- 
tem, we allow it to double, quadruple or multiply itself ten- 
fold out of the wealth produced by labor, thus " working a 
false distribution of products." The remedy for this is to 
prohibit forever any man from buying or exchanging land, 
except for purposes of actual cultivation, the tenure insepara- 
ble from actual cultivation by the owner or holder. By thus 
preventing accumulated money from placing perpetual liens 
on industry, and its owners not only from taxing their own 
generation, but posterity, to support a non-producing class, 



440 REMEDIES. 

living on rent, we reduce the inordinate gains of accumulated 
money, and drive it into more useful fields of actual produc- 
tion. 

Mr. Henry George says: "I do not propose to purchase or 
to confiscate private property in land. The first would be 
unjust, the second needless. Let the individuals who now 
hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they 
are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it 
their land. Let them buy and sell and bequeath and devise it. 
We may safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel. 
It is not necessary to confiscate land, it is only necessary to con- 
fiscate rent." * He adds : " By leaving to landowners a per- 
centage of rent, which would probably be much less than the 
cost and loss involved in attempting to rent lands through 
state agency, and by making use of their existing machinery, 
we may, without jar or shock, assert the common right to 
land by taking rent for public uses." f In India, the British 
government has been trying for three quarters of a century 
to make the rent or tribute-taking Zemindars into landlords. 
Mr. George proposes to make the laudlords of this country 
into Zemindars. We will quote him a little farther : " We 
already take some rent on taxation. We have only to make 
some changes in our modes of taxation to take it all." 
" What I, therefore, propose as the simple yet sovereign rem- 
edy, which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, 
extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerating em- 
ployment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human 
powers, lessen crime, elevate morals, and taste, and intelli- 
gence, purify government, and carry civilization to yet nobler 
heights, is to appropriate rent by taxation" % 

We do not think it would be candid or just to Mr. George 
to charge him with any insincerity or evasion. To write 

* Progress and Poverty, Lovell edition, page 292. f Ibid. 

X Ibid. 



APPROPRIATING RENT BY TAXATION. 441 

about taking the " kernel/' and leaving the landowners " the 
shell," and in the same breath leaving the landowners in 
possession, trenches on the facetious. In order to " appro- 
priate the rent by taxation," it would be necessary to enact a 
law which would prevent the landowner from taking another 
rent in addition to the one paid to the state. Or to secure the 
arrangement he proposes of leaving the landowners a per- 
centage of the rent for leasing and looking after the lands, it 
would be necessary to prevent him by law from taking more 
than a fixed per cent. Otherwise the owner would simply add 
the taxes to the rent, and thus either increase the price of pro- 
ducts or diminish the wages of laborers. 

Taxation of land is very common ; indeed, universal in this 
country. In some states what we call "real property" pays 
the great bulk of the taxes. The writer does not think that 
any one ever heard of heavy taxation reducing rents. On the 
contrary we have numerous examples of tenants who pay rents 
in cities complaining of excessive municipal taxation because 
it raised their rents. Mr. George, however, is perfectly right, 
in this, that the power of the state to tax lands and the policy 
of taxing them heavily may be the means of preventing non- 
resident landowning and putting an end to land monopoly. 
In the power of taxation we find the necessary lever for 
bringing about a change in land tenure in this country. That 
is doubtless what Mr. George means ; but to carry out his sys- 
tem he must see that the tax falls on rent not land. If the 
nominal landowner is to be a leasing and collecting agent let 
him receive what landlords pay their agents now, five per cent, 
of the rent, and let the rent tax be ninety-five per cent, of it. 
The law, moreover, would have to be framed with very great 
care or the world would soon witness an astounding decline 
of rents and increase of " bonuses" to the agent landowner. 
A more perfect remedy would be a heavy tax on landowners 
who do not cultivate the soil and an equal burden placed 
upon landlords. To prevent great landowners from extending 



442 REMEDIES. 

the system of large farms tilled by wage workers or laborers 
such farms should also be taxed heavily, and the sizes of 
farms that could be held by one person diminished from time 
to time, thus securing small holdings. Laws to prevent the 
creation or extension of great farms ought to be enacted 
at once. It should be the fixed policy of the people of 
the United States to have no landlord over the occu- 
pying cultivator of the soil unless that landlord is the state. 
The liberty, independence and happiness of our agricultural 
yeomanry cannot be preserved unless this is done. Limited 
tenure to actual cultivators is best, but if title to land be insisted 
on, at the death of every land owner the law should compel 
the land to be divided. The ambition and covetousness 
of the human heart will always tend to the accumulation 
of land in the hands of an active individual, and there must 
be some counterpoise or check to the aggregating process. 
This can be most successfully done by compulsory laws of 
inheritance. A heavy tax on all shares of inherited land in 
excess of say one hundred and sixty acres, to be gradually 
reduced, when necessary, to eighty acres, forty acres, twenty 
acres, or even five. Make land holding unprofitable whenever 
lands are held in larger amounts than can be cultivated by 
actual occupying laboring farmers, or when they are held in 
greater amounts than would furnish a sufficient number of 
farms for all persons who wish to cultivate the soil. Let it be 
a settled purpose that in these United States landlordism 
shall be rendered so unprofitable that it will cease. If it is 
to be our desire to put the land in the hands of small holders, 
a heavy tax on such holders would be extremely impolitic. 
It would be a mere tax on bread and meat. 

Such a course might reduce the nominal price of land, but 
that would be no misfortune. The destruction of speculative 
land values would not make the country any poorer. The 
land would produce just as much afterward as before. 
As has been previously stated, millions of dollars in sup- 



ALLODIAL TENURE. 443 

posed slave property were on the tax roll, but were taken 
from it before the close of the late war. In spite of these 
hundreds of millions of property thus apparently lost by 
the action of government, nothing was really destroyed. 
It merely swept away a vicious institution, which, as Mr. At- 
kinson would say, "worked a false distribution of wealth and 
of product." If all the speculative value was swept away 
from land, the country would be just as rich, and its wealth 
would be more justly distributed. If all the fraudulent and 
fictitious stocks, bonds and mortgages of companies and cor- 
porations could be destroyed by one legislative act, and 
nothing left save the actual cash paid in and honestly ex- 
pended, there would be no destruction of property. So far 
from being poorer, the country would be a great deal better oif. 
We have, at this time, to consider, not only what would be 
the wisest and best system of land tenure for these United 
States, but what is the most feasible way of reaching such a 
result. If we had a new government to construct and a 
virgin soil to dispose of, untrammeled by the manufactured 
privileges of landowners, the wisest foundation would be the 
doctrine that the surface of the earth belonged to all the peo- 
ple, and that one generation could place no liens upon it 
to the prejudice of the next. Allodial or family tenure is 
safer than individual chattel tenure. All the details in regard 
to length of leases and mode of making or compensating 
for improvements should be managed by the people of each 
organized township. Free facility ought to be given for ex- 
change of occupation, as a necessary condition of independence, 
and any man should be able to cultivate his share of the soil 
when he desired to do so. Whatever advantages accrued 
from land tenure ought to be so distributed that each citizen, 
whatever might be his occupation; would get the benefit of 
them. There should always be a spot of earth on which 
every man born in this world could build his home, however 
humble. If in the crush of increasing population all else 



444 REMEDIES. 

was used for raising bread, public parks and even the pleasure 
grounds of the rich should be taken to furnish a foundation 
for these homes. No man ought to .be able to obtain a living 
by selling the "natural and indestructible powers of the soil," 
or foist himself as a non-producing member on society, under 
the special plea that somebody had sold him the privilege of 
collecting rent. 

While we recognize the justness of these general principles 
the practical question is how best to reach such an end, when 
a large portion of the country has been disposed of as a chattel, 
under law enacted by the representatives of the people. The 
power to suddenly destroy all the individual privileges in 
land the people in their sovereign capacity undoubtedly 
possess, and if it was a necessity for the preservation of the 
state, or the preservation of the people, they would be justified 
in exercising it. It was once teuaciously held, even by 
enemies of the system, that the government, having recoguized 
property in slaves, could not abolish it without fully indem- 
nifying the owners. Slavery was abolished and he would be 
a bold man who would propose to create another debt to 
compensate the owners. We do not say that a man forfeits 
his right to hold another man as a slave because he did not 
properly buy him, or honestly pay for him, but we object to 
the transaction because a man is something he should not buy. 
The United States was freed from the burden of slavery as a 
war measure. The private ownership of lands will be claimed 
as a vested right and it is a question how far the government 
has been complicated by its transactions. In Great Britain, 
for example, the aristocratic landowners obtained what they 
call their title merely by conspiracy and violence, and have 
for many years been enriched by it. To create a great debt as 
a burden on the people, to buy their title, would merely be to 
transfer the burden from one shoulder to the other. In our 
country chattel title to land has the color of law and may 
claim the sacredness of a bargain, but its owner cannot be said 



TITLE THROUGH CULTIVATION AND OCCUPANCY. 445 

to have an equitable title to the " unearned increment " caused 
by population, or the privilege to hold land without cultivat- 
ing it. 

It may be taken for granted that the people of these United 
States are not going to make another great debt in order to 
get money to buy back all the land, and then proceed to 
rectify the mistake by which individual claims and individual 
monopolies were created. A proposition to take possession 
of the land, and confiscate individual titles, in the present 
condition of affairs, is not likely to be popular. Practical 
remedies lie in another direction. It would, however, be 
entirely proper and consistent to provide by law that lands 
in this republic should only be sold to occupying culti- 
vators, and this to include, not only the public lands of the 
United States, but all lands. Cultivation and occupancy 
by the holder should be one of the conditions of tenure. In 
order to reduce large farms to small ones, and in this way make 
every cultivator a landholder, one of two modes could be 
adopted : The law might limit the acreage to be held by any one 
person, the other plan would probably be more easily accom- 
plished and lead to less confusion. Fix a small minimum 
acreage which would be but lightly taxed, or, better still, not 
taxed at all, and then let taxation increase as the scale went 
up, until the large landowners would find it unprofitable to 
hold land and be forced to sell. Whether the land was thus 
held in small farms by assignments for a period of years, or 
on a tenure or title that was exchangeable, the result would be 
that those who wished to cultivate the soil could do so on easy 
terms, without being burdened with an overwhelming debt, 
and placing themselves in the power of capital. Either sys- 
tem would multiply the opportunities, increase the earnings 
and cheapen the food of the working classes. 

In the July number of the North American Review, A 885, 
there is a printed discussion between Cyrus Field and Henry 
George, from which we quote : 
38 



446 EEMEDIES. 

Mr. Field : "You propose for the present no change what- 
ever in anything, except that the amount now raised by all 
methods of taxation should be imposed on real estate con- 
sidered as vacant ? " 

Mr. George : " For a beginning, yes." 

Mr. Field : " Well, what would you propose for the ending 
of such a scheme ? " 

Mr. George : " The taking of the full annual value of land 
for the benefit of the whole people. I hold that the land 
belongs equally to all, and that land values arise from the 
presence of all." 

In the same discussion Mr. George states that he would 
not tax improvements, as that would be a tax on industry. 
The tax should be on the intrinsic value of land, that value 
being created by the population which makes this demand 
upon it. He holds that " in the complex civilization we have 
now attained, it would be impossible to secure equality by 
giving to each a separate piece of land, or to maintain that 
equality, even if once secured ; but by treating all land as the 
property of the whole people we would make the whole people 
the landlords." Mr. Field then asks if it is his purpose that 
" the rate of taxation should equal the rate of annual rental, 
and that the proceeds of the tax should be applied, not only 
to the purposes of government, but to any other purposes that 
the legislature from time to time may think desirable, even to 
dividing them among the people at so much a head." In 
reply to this question Mr. George answers, " That is substan- 
tially correct." In a note to the writer, Mr. George says : 
a The conversation was correctly reported, and, as far as it 
goes, represents my views." 

It is very evident that the interview quoted can only be 
taken as indicating the principles involved. It would be 
unfair to criticize a general plan by assailing some of the 
details. While, therefore, we cannot help considering details, 
we must accord to Mr. George the fullest credit for his sugges- 



RENT OR REVENUE A BREAD TAX. 447 

tions as to taxation being one of the means, or, if he will, the 
chief means of remedying the defects arising from the mistake 
of giving a permanent monopoly of the laud to a few indi- 
viduals. The land, after all, as we have attempted to show, 
belongs to the whole people under the theory of eminent 
domain. All tenure under it is subordinate to that. This 
may be asserted in the broadest sense, and is always asserted 
in taxing it, and there is no limit to the authority of the state 
to tax. Whether the natural resources of land should bear 
all the tax is another question. Evidently Mr. George means 
that since all have a right to land, and yet as all do not desire 
to occupy land, therefore, taking the rent in tax and applying 
it to general purposes would be a simple and fair way of dis- 
tributing it. This plan of Mr. George's necessarily involves 
taking the value of the land, which is what it will produce, 
from the present holders, and applying it in such a way as to 
equally distribute its benefits. Rent is to pay all public bur- 
dens. If that were done the rent tax would be merely an 
impost on production. Of course it will be said that where 
rent is paid now it creates such a tax on bread for private 
emolument ; and so it does, and this is One of the most serious 
objections to it. 

To give the city laborer a bonus from the rent of land and 
have that amount added to the price of his bread would hardly 
do. Any tax on land is necessarily a tax on bread. The 
policy we have suggested is to throw the land in small farms 
into the hands of cultivating holders, so that every agricul- 
tural laborer can become a holder. If this was accomplished 
it would be a grave question whether a heavy land tax would 
be wise. Land taxation, as a remedial measure against capi- 
talist landlords, non-occupying holders, or holders of large 
farms, would be a wise measure. Where there exists a great 
class of cultivating owners, with small farms, who have none 
of these heavy burdeus to pay, or but light burdens, the 
speculating holders could not enter into competition with 



448 REMEDIES. 

them, and would not be able to charge the tax or rent levied 
by the government to the cost of production. In such a case 
this holding of land by capitalists and non-occupying land- 
lords would cease to be profitable and the price of food be 
thus lessened. The reader will at once see the necessity of 
preventing an additional tax or rent from increasing the 
price of food. The people are deeply interested in being able 
to buy cheap food ; that is, as cheap as is consistent with pay- 
ing good wages to agricultural laborers. It is well enough 
to tax the interest that individual monopolists have in land, 
but it would be a doubtful policy to collect a rent which might 
add to the cost of producing bread and meat, even if the 
proceeds were applied to the support of government or dis- 
tributed per capita to all the men and women of the country. 
Another objection is that by placing all public burdens on 
rent the rich men and millionaires in other business, would be 
tax free, and taxation would finally be a mere bread tax which 
the poor would have to pay equally with the rich. 

Connected with the land question is the question of timber. 
The country of the United States has been largely denuded 
of its forests. Owners of land wasted it unnecessarily. 
Cutting timber on " Congress land " was at one time uni- 
versal. Neither the statute nor the moral law seemed to lie 
against stealing timber. An effort has been made of late 
years to check the practice, but does not appear to have been 
very successful. Not only on the public lands, but on all 
lands a fair amount of the domain should be in forest. This 
is indispensable, as the wholesale and indiscriminate cutting of 
our forests is disastrous as affecting rainfalls, the volume of 
rivers, the crops and public health. Measures for the preser- 
vation of public timber are demanded, and should be enacted 
at once to compel planting of certaiu areas in new timber as 
the old timber is removed : to have the timbered areas of 
public land controlled by law, and held by public ownership. 

The right to graze on the public domain free of charge is 



NO MONOPOLY OF MINERALS. 449 

one of the individual rights very freely asserted. If one or 
two sections had been reserved as commons in each township, 
where every man could graze his cow, and so held until 
denser population demanded other uses for it, it would in 
many respects have been a fortunate circumstance. The graz- 
ing lands, or, rather, lands only fit for grazing, are large tracts 
remote from settlement. Pasturage, especially in such regions, 
requires that the land be so divided as to have water fronts. 
Pasturage without water is worthless and the water must be 
so convenient that the cattle will not be kept poor by hours 
of driving to it each day. Any temporary lease of such lands 
would have to be made with these necessities in view. No title 
to these lauds should be permitted to pass. Neither should they 
be leased in large tracts so that a few great monopolists could 
control our beef interests. Grazing tracts should not be large, 
but large enough to graze a herd from the care of which a 
family could derive a maintenance. The chief advantage of 
making these temporary grazing leases would be to utilize the 
lands in the public interest and reserve them for the period 
when wiser views on the land question will prevail. They 
ought to be withdrawn from sale at once. 

No title or tenure to land should be held to convey mineral. 
Not only what are called the precious minerals, but coal, iron, 
petroleum or salt. No monopoly in either of these should 
ever be permitted. So far as mines or beds have been already 
opened and worked the remedies should be instituted in a 
careful way, recognizing only certain rights in the holders 
by way of indemnification, but slowly working to the logical 
end, the assertion of the rights of all the people. A law 
should at ouce be euacted to cover all cases of mines of any 
kind, or oil wells not opened and worked. These should be 
the property of the state. A royalty sufficient to assert and 
cover the public right should be exacted, and thus open the 
door to every mau, rich and poor, who wished to develop 
them ; this law should apply not only to public mineral lands 



450 REMEDIES. 

but to all mineral lands, and the rights granted to prospectors 
ought to be carefully guarded to prevent monopoly. It would 
really be neither breach of faith nor breach of public obliga- 
tion to assert the public ownership of minerals. All laws for 
the sale of mineral lands should be repealed. In point of fact 
the larger portion of public lands containing mineral, that 
have been sold, have been obtained by an evasion of the letter 
or spirit of the law. 

The United States ought certainly to regulate the tenure of 
the railroad grants that have not yet passed from under the 
hauds of the government. So far as the roads that received 
subsidies of bonds are concerned, it might be proper to resume 
the lands in lieu of the debt. At the time these roads thought 
they would be compelled to pay taxes on such lands, some of 
them proposed a similar measure, and as the public money 
really built many of these roads there would be neither injus- 
tice nor inconsistency in doing this, especially as the railroads 
for many years have failed to claim title. No lands should be 
deeded hereafter to any company. Where they may have 
been faithfully earned according to the terms of the agreement 
some adjustment should be made, but this open door to unre- 
stricted speculation in lands should be closed immediately. 

These suggestions touching the yet undisposed of public 
lands are made with a design of calling popular attention 
to the necessity of preventing another acre of them from going 
into the hands of capitalist speculators. The interest of land 
speculation is a very potent one, and will resist all attempts to 
curtail its emoluments. If arrested at this point the various 
necessary land reforms will be rendered much easier. / In most 
of the Eastern and Central states, where the land has largely 
been monopolized, the landed interest' already threatens to gov- 
ern the country, j Attempts to increase land tax have often been 
met by the defeat of the county or state officers who made 
them. One of the chief reasons why a landed aristocracy and 
great landed interests should not be permitted to grow stronger 



COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 451 

is that such a power will inevitably weaken and destroy a 
government of the people. j[ 

The evils of land monopoly have been discerned by think- 
ing men at different periods of our history. Various remedies 
have been proposed for the individual monopolization of land. 
Among the experiments attempted were the formation of com- 
munistic societies. In many of them there has been a com- 
mingling of socialistic teachings with communal landholding. 
Not only the land but the interests of all industries were to 
be held in common. Some of the communistic societies have 
been to a large degree religious organizations. Attention was 
not only paid to industrial methods, but to the propagation 
of new moral and religious dogmas. Societies have been 
formed to propagate peculiar views as to marriage and all 
social relations, and these combinations of men and women 
have been of all kinds — Shakers, Amanist, Rappist, Oneida 
communists, Icarians, New Harmony settlers, and numberless 
others, down to Brook Farm. 

The most wonderful of these organizations is the Mormon. 
They cannot correctly be called Socialists. They are in some 
degree land communists, as they endeavor to establish town 
communities. Their peculiar religious views, and, above all, 
their attempt to introduce polygamy into the United States, 
has* largely given them the notoriety they enjoy, and has 
caused their other peculiarities to be overlooked. Driven 
from Nauvoo and from Missouri by violence, they finally 
took root in the great basin lying between the Rocky Moun- 
tains and the Sierra Nevadas. When they settled at Salt 
Lake, organization and concentration was a necessity. Agri- 
culture without irrigation was impossible, and irrigation 
without combination equally impossible. They did not con- 
fine themselves to Salt Lake. Colonies were planted in all 
the Western territories. In Southern Utah, Arizona, and 
Western New Mexico, there is scarcely a valley with water 
that they have not traversed, and their colonies may be found 



452 EEMEDIES. 

everywhere. Along the Little Colorado they constitute the 
greater part of the population. The streams are dammed by 
the joint exertion of the colony. A large field of irrigated 
land is enclosed, in which each family has its portion of cul- 
tivated land. Great corrals are built for the stock, which is 
cared for in a common herd. The people live in villages. 
Their houses do not materially differ from those of other 
American settlers. The results of industry constitute indi- 
vidual property, and they are neither socialistic nor commu- 
nistic, so far as that goes. They have a great deal of diffi- 
culty in reconciling their system with the land laws of the 
United States, but land speculation does not thrive among 
them in their new colonies. The writer has visited many of 
their villages, and found the people industrious, thrifty, and in 
comparatively comfortable circumstances for a new, wild 
country. Their polygamous practices have justly exposed them 
to the indignation of Christian people. Their hierarchy is 
inclined to be aristocratic, and assumes too many of the 
powers of government to be tolerated by Americans. If the 
settlements they have made were stripped of the last vestige 
of polygamy and the pow r er of their church reduced to the 
proportions of other religious bodies, their improvements and 
industries in that arid region would be an interesting study. 

Robert Owen's colonies were not societies of mere land re- 
formers, but organizations of socialistic and communistic life. 
Individualism was sunk in the community. It was an at- 
tempt, not so much to give the individual fair play, as to 
merge the man in the group. These experiments failed. 
Many others grew up and perished like them. After the 
French revolution of 1848, Etienne Cabot, who had taken an 
active part in it, contemplated the founding of a colony on 
the idea of an equality of property. Taxation was to be 
removed from all articles of necessity, and a graduated in- 
come tax to supply all public wants. A colony was started 
in Texas under a grant to give the half of every alternate sec- 



ICARIA. 453 

tion of a certain locality for each settler, leaving the remainder 
to be sold by the state.* In a new country, wild and unde- 
veloped, the colony weak and the population round it 
unsympathetic, its failure was a foregone conclusion. The 
colonists then rented the deserted Mormon town at Nauvoo. 
There they reorganized, but in a few years discord arose as to 
its management, a fate that seems to follow any communistic 
society. Another " Icaria " was founded in Iowa. For a 
time it was successful, and accumulated some property, but it 
possessed too many active thinkers to proceed permanently in 
harmony. The sacredness of the marriage tie was affirmed, 
but the children were under the care of the association. The 
social capital was common and indivisible. Article 18 of the 
constitution or contract may be quoted in full : " The princi- 
pal object of this association in conducting the affairs described 
and considered in these articles being that of creating a fund 
which shall provide for the needs and comforts of the young, 
the old, the sick and the infirm, no dividend shall be paid to 
any member ; but every accumulation of wealth shall be 
added to the common fund." f A member on withdrawing 
received $100 from this common fund, and the same amount 
was paid in some cases of expulsion. After the society had 
been organized an equal sum was required on admission. In 
many respects these social organizations resembled the House 
Communities of the Sclavonic races ; only that the latter were 
often of one family stock. 

The social and communistic organizations in the United 
States are interesting not only as experiments, but as evi- 
dences that those who felt the defects of the present forms 
of society were seeking a remedy. They were revolts 
against the extreme doctrine of selfishness and individu- 
alism, and although they did not prove to be practical ones, 
they still indicated the existing causes of dissatisfaction. The 

* Icaria, page 34. | Ibid., page 193, 



454 REMEDIES. 

North American Phalanx, of which Horace Greeley was vice 
president, was founded on the ideas of Fourier, and many 
local phalanxes were formed, none of them attaining practical 
or permanent success. The American public, outside of the 
persons connected with these organizations, but little under- 
stood them. Mormonism and the Oneida Perfectionists had 
made people suspicious of all new social combinations. In 
some cases these experimental communities were openly per- 
secuted, but as a usual thing they had liberty to test their 
"experiment" under a general shade of suspicion. This 
prejudice is still used dexterously as a weapon against all 
new political ideas. Mr. Henry George, who is certainly 
neither socialistic nor communistic, has been pronounced to be 
both, by those who found it difficult to answer his arguments. 
Mr. Hyndman and Mr. Wallace have also, been called 
" communists " and " socialists," and even Mr. Chamberlain, 
a member of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet, in making a speech in 
favor of a reform of the land system, and an increase of 
power for the people, was charged with communistic doctrine 
by the opposition papers. The epithets, " demagogue," "agra- 
rian," "communist," are hurled at any man who advances 
new ideas, and, like the charge of witchcraft a century or two 
ago, only require vehemence, persistence and malice to give 
them force. Those who use them appeal to a somewhat strong 
element in society, intrenched ignorance. It is well to re- 
member people who oppose large landed interests, and the 
profits of land speculation, encounter an opposition at once 
unscrupulous and formidable. It is also unhappily true that 
a strong gambling spirit has taken deep root with many of 
our people. By this is meant not ordinary gambling, but the 
spirit which deals in chances, and uncertain speculations. It 
arises from the disposition which makes haste to be rich. 
The avenues of industry and thrift are despised, and the sins 
of overreaching and commercial duplicity not sufficiently held 
up to reprobation. 



INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL DUTY. 455 

I have referred to experiments, such as Icaria, chiefly to 
exhibit the conflicting ideas about social organization. On the 
one hand individualism with its extreme assumptions, on the 
other society as entirely submerging the individual. The 
faults in our form of social life do not arise from giving the 
individual full play in a field of exertion, but in allowing the 
individual too unlimited control over what affects others as 
well as himself. The civilization we are founding is based on 
the most absolute assertion of the independence of the indi- 
vidual. Our men brook no restraint. The family tie sits 
loosely, and the social tie if not overlooked altogether is con- 
sidered merely as a means of amusement or gratification. To 
preserve the individual independence in a legitimate field of 
activity, repress its unjust and avaricious desires, and make it 
conform to the interests of all is the golden mean to be sought. 
In a community like Icaria men are supposed to be equally 
benevolent, working unselfishly for the common good. It is 
a noble conception, but, unhappily, all are not benevolent, all 
are not unselfish, all are not even honest. The individual, 
untrammeled by the views or whims of others, can best carve 
out his own fortune. It is this intense individualism that 
is the keystone in the arch of American society. It has 
its eminent advantages and" marks the field of progress with 
monuments of human endurance and skill. It errs fatally 
when this individualism assumes to be supreme. There is 
a field for the individual and a field for the action of society. 
There is property for the individual, and wealth in the bound- 
less stores of nature that is, and can only be, the property of 
all men. It is with the duties as well as the privileges of the 
individual we have to do. Let the individual work for his 
advancement, but there must be a perfect equity in all his 
transactions. The individual cannot be allowed a monopoly 
of any of the rights of nature. One family is no better than 
another family, one generation no better than another genera- 
tion. When family ties are weak, where there is no moral or 



456 REMEDIES. 

religious home instruction, where each member has not a 
tender solicitude for the welfare of others, then we may expect 
selfish adventurers to be let loose upon society. A father 
who has a child he loves, has a tender bond to bind him to 
the interests of society. Man owes his fellow man more than 
" civility." The men who framed this government, and who 
fought for years in its defense, uttered the doctrine, " We 
hold this truth to be self-evident that God created all men 
equal." It was the tears and prayers, agitation and perse- 
verance of good men and women, that abolished American 
slavery, and made its crimes odious. It was such men as 
Howard who introduced prison reform. Able and self-sacri- 
ficiug men have often arisen who have espoused the cause 
of the down trodden and the weak. The interests of man- 
kind are indissolubly woven together. 

Assuming an equitable system of land tenure to be 
possible, what are the remedies that will secure better pay for 
wage workers ? How shall those who have been in the habit 
of selling their labor for money get a higher price for it ? We 
have seen that the colossal fortunes, now threatening society 
with their overshadowing influence, have been chiefly made 
from the toil of artisans and laborers who have been kept in 
humble circumstances and comparative poverty. When we 
say there must be a fairer distribution of the proceeds of labor, 
the question occurs, Can it be brought about ? It is evident 
that what modern political economists call "free competition" 
will not secure it. Capital has had the advantage, and has 
profited by it to obtain more than its share. Accumulated 
and organized capital has used its resources to speculate on the 
necessities of poor wage workers. To counterbalance this, 
labor must be thoroughly and intelligently organized. Each 
craft should be a unit. It has been said that manufacture and 
trade can only be carried on to the extent that capital is fur- 
nished to employ the workmen. Threats have been made that 
capital will withdraw from the alliance with labor if organized 



CORPORATE AND NATIONAL DEBTS. 457 

efforts are made largely to interfere with its profits. That is 
simply absurd. When capital is reduced to the necessity of 
taking two, or even one per cent., or being hid away uselessly 
in a stocking ; it will take two, or even one per cent. With 
thorough intelligent organization labor is more potent than 
capital. One necessary step is to strip capital of all illegitimate 
sources of profitable investment, and chief among these is 
investment in land. The next would be to extinguish or 
change the character of public debts. No public debt ought 
to be permitted to extend beyond the generation that con- 
tracted it. Rulers have been in the habit of making too 
heavy drafts on posterity. Instead of the theory that public 
debts are a blessing, the doctrine must be maintained that 
perpetual debts are a curse. State, cqunty or municipal debt 
should never be permitted to exceed a certain percentage on 
property and be payable in a limited period. All the enormous 
machinery of public debt is only an instrument for draining 
incomes from the work of laborers, with the additional draw- 
back that raises the rate of interest and swells the inor- 
dinate profits of capital. Unfortunately the debts of great 
corporations and companies have almost the same effect, since 
the interest and principal are taken from the productive 
industry of the country, and the managers have really the 
power to add to the burdens of the people. When the corpo- 
rations use the borrowed money with fidelity and economy in, 
transportation lines, the objection to them is not so great, but 
when large portions of it go to swell private fortunes, it 
inflicts degradation as well as injury upon the workingman. 
There are no exactions so burdensome, and, no tyranny so 
remorseless as an inflated and dishonest credit system. 

Public debts should be kept at the minimum, and never 
permitted to be indefinitely extended to burden one generation 
with the extravagance, wickedness or maintenance of another. 
It may sneeringly be said that this is impossible. Our war 
of the rebellion was one of the most expensive on record. 
39 



458 REMEDIES. 

That debt is largely paid, and need not be extended beyond 
the generation that created it. 

So far as debt may be necessary, it should be our sedulous 
desire to popularize our loans. It is better to borrow one 
dollar each from a million of people than a million dollars 
from one man. It is the better public policy, in placing a 
loan, to raise it from the dollar, the quarter, or even ten cent 
subscriptions of the people, than to appeal to a syndicate of 
bankers and millionaires. With a proper land system, and 
better security for the rights of labor, the government could 
borrow all it would ever properly need from the working 
people of these United States, as the French government does 
from the masses of her people. In that event it would be 
wise to encourage their moderate savings, and by such a safe 
institution as a postal savings bank, take up in small sums all 
the government needed to borrow. Each account should be 
limited, and if the certificates were made exchangeable, com- 
paratively poor people would thus be enabled to invest small 
sums, knowing that when they were compelled to use the 
money it would be convertible. Giving it this quality could 
certainly be no worse than the system on which the national 
banks are based, which have their interest bearing bonds securely 
stored, and national bank notes issued to them for circulation. 
By the course here suggested the national bank notes would 
soon be superseded by these postal certificates. Above all we 
neither need nor want a large standing army to create a debt. 
Citizen soldiery are the safe and legitimate defenders of a 
republic. 

One mode of helping wage workers would be by opening to 
them more freely other channels of enterprise and industry. 
Under a proper land system, with the country cut up into 
small farms of five, ten or twenty acres, such farms being pur- 
chasable or held only by actual cultivators a comparatively easy 
transition from one business to another could be had in case 
of necessity. When all mineral, coal, salt or petroleum belong 



ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 459 

to the whole people, and can oaly be worked on terms equal 
and fair to each individual, other fields of enterprise will 
thus open. If the laws were modified and perfected so that 
every unfair bargain, contract or transaction could be examined 
and set aside there would be a further security for poor 
laborers. All gambling, stock-jobbing or business conducted on 
the doctrines of chance or misrepresentation should be abolished. 
Law has made rapid progress in the past ten years ; it must 
reach up to this standard. Precedents are on the statute book 
and human genius can compass the necessary results. 

After all, the best help workmen can get must come from 
themselves. Capital is organized, labor must be completely 
organized. The laborers are the great majority and they by 
wisdom and determination can, under our form of govern- 
ment, have laws framed to secure and defend their rights. 
They can compel laws to be enacted in their interests, and 
make the instruments of justice the servants of the people, 
instead of the servants of rich corporations. It is true that 
it is always easier to discard a bad and unfaithful public 
servant than to get a good one, still, with perseverance it can 
be done. Every branch of labor should have complete organi- 
zations ; these should be perfectly lawful in all their acts. 
Violence, terrorism, assassination, all these things are suicide 
to the interests of the laboring man. They are not needed. 
They are merely the wrathful outbursts of impotence. It has 
been said that strikes are a bad remedy ; that they are waste- 
ful and tend to lawlessness. People forget that employers have 
their strikes. Every time an employer reduces wages or in- 
creases the hours of service, or demands more work he strikes 
for higher profits. He uses the power of capital to coerce 
labor. In doing this he violates the most sacred laws of 
society. Capitalists have no right to say that labor shall not 
be organized. Bad though strikes may be, perhaps they are 
the only remedy. They will end when law enables arbitra- 
tion to settle difficulties between capital and organized labor. 



460 REMEDIES. 

The workman is not strong enough to stand alone. Arbitra- 
tion to have sufficient force to prevent revolution, must have 
law behind it, giving it power to enforce a fair share of pro- 
ducts to working men. 

Organized labor must control labor, instead of labor being 
controlled by accumulated wealth. How can this be done. 
Are the laborers poor ? very well. Look at the millionaires 
of to-day. They were poor not long ago. They did nearly 
all their work on credit. Can organized labor, wisely man- 
aged, not do the same thing? If workingmen understand 
themselves thoroughly, and by organization make their trade 
a power, they can either get fair wages or carry on business 
themselves. The public requires that the laborer's work shall 
go on. Because there may be a certain need for accumulated 
wealth, the owners thereof have been able by organization 
into business companies, and by shrewd management, to control 
labor. Labor is a far more important factor than capital aud 
ought to be able to wrest the management of business from its 
hands. Accumulated wealth, whether invested in machinery 
or other useful shape, should be satisfied with a small interest 
profit. Credit can keep any business running and organizations 
of workingmen must realize that in order to secure it their 
"yea, yea" and "nay, nay" must be as good as their bond. In 
associations of workingmen and co-operating societies their 
dependence to some extent rests. In these they are liable to 
have bad agents. So are railroad companies and stock-jobbing 
associations. Workingmen and artisans ought to comprehend 
their business sufficiently to Iznow when it is properly conducted. 
It should be all carried on under their own eyes, while a capi- 
talist often leaves his agent to manage without knowing what 
is being done. To confess that organized workingmen have 
not the brains and business capacity to manage their own 
work is an admission they cannot afford to make, and one 
which is not true as a question of fact. 

There have been a good many theories about taxation. 



TAXATION AND PUBLIC DUTY. 4G1 

One thing is certain : taxes have never been very popular 
with those who have to pay them. We witness to-day the 
greatest evasions of tax paying among the richest men of the 
country ; men worth ten, twenty, fifty or one hundred millions, 
and who by a just public policy should carry taxation at a 
quadruple rate, sometimes do not pay taxes on a tenth part of 
their property, and none of them pay taxes on all their 
wealth. The science of keeping property off the tax roll 
does not seem to come into successful operation until the accu- 
mulation exceeds one hundred thousand dollars ; this teaches 
us that in order to affect and reduce great accumulations of 
wealth, a more searching system of taxation must be adopted, 
There is with many of our people a deep-seated conviction 
against any taxation except for the payment of the simplest 
forms of government, honestly administered. The phrase 
often used " legitimate expenses of the government " is, how- 
ever, rather vague. I hold that it is the legitimate business 
of government, local and general, to do or direct everything 
that concerns the common good, that cannot be safely left to 
individual enterprise, in order to insure perfectly equal dealing 
for all. Thus, for instance, it has been a very questionable 
policy that permits gas companies to usurp a public func- 
tion, in tearing up the streets to furnish gas, and then allow- 
ing this monopoly, so created, to unmercifully fleece the people. 
Is there any reason why capital invested in a gas, railroad or 
insurance company should not have the percentage of its 
profits fixed by law? To prevent and correct abuses of man- 
agement the percentage of official fees and salaries should also 
be fixed. Nor is it in the public interest or policy to permit 
the public highways, railroads or others, to be managed or 
controlled by monopolies. There are two ways this can be pre- 
vented. First the state could build, buy, own and operate 
them, or place these establishments completely under law 
and the superintendence of public officers. When stocks are 
subscribed, let it be done by public open subscription, let all 



462 EEMEDIES. 

contracts be on open competitive bids, and the most rigid 
inspections enforced on receiving work. The stockholders 
ought not to be allowed to control or abuse the patronage of 
the roads in any shape. Let the rates charged be fixed by 
law on the most economical basis, and let the dividends on 
stock be paid so as to certainly insure a small rate of interest. 
Whatever interest on investments was thus payed would at least 
be guaranteed and free from the robberies of stock jobbing com- 
panies, and would put an end to speculation in stocks. Even 
if part of the expenditure this system required had to be sup- 
ported from taxes, it would be in the line of the public interests. 
Another just function for the public to perform is to take care 
of the helpless and to care for them well. The creation of a 
regular pauper system, the burden of which rests on the pro- 
ductive industry of the country is not desirable. The laborer 
in thus contributing largely from the proceeds of his labor, is 
incapacitated from saving, and discouraged from securing an 
independence of his own, and in old age naturally turns to 
the poorhouse he has supported. This pauperizing system 
multiplies a class that it is not the public interest to aid in 
increasing. On the contrary every encouragement and facility 
ought to be given to induce wage workers to save part of their 
earnings and so render them to some extent independent of 
every vicissitude. When Avant unavoidably comes, there must 
be suitable provision to relieve it, since there ought to be no 
actual suffering from such cause in a country possessing 
so much wealth. Hospitals, schools and asylums should 
be maintained. Temporary lodgings and a few meals to 
the destitute ought to be furnished in every town or city; 
this benevolence rigidly guarded to prevent idle depend- 
ence. All these should be established by the public, and 
the tax to support them charged not to active producing 
industry , but in all cases to accumulated wealth. Indeed, this 
ought to be the fundamental basis of all taxation, and would be 
a much needed and wise check to unnecessary accumulations. 



NEEDED EXPENDITUKES. 463 

Taxation should be graded, moreover, that it might not fall 
heavily on the needed competence that merely secures inde- 
pendence in old age. The mischievous accumulations of 
wealth are those devoted to maintaining a second or succeeding 
generation as a non-productive class. This the state has a 
right to prevent. A wise public policy should take means to 
prevent it, and one of the most efficient steps is to place the 
public burdens heavily on all such accumulations. There are 
other necessary public duties that would require the additional 
taxes thus raised. Our systems of sewerage in towns and 
cities are all more or less crude and defective. Neither the 
poor nor the rich should be exposed to the noxious gases or filth 
of our towns and cities. To place our streets, alleys and lots 
on a cleanly, healthy basis under the best scientific modes that 
have been or can be devised, would be a wise, and is really an 
indispensable measure. Closely connected with these should 
be a mode of furnishing pure, wholesome water for every 
community. From the water our people are now in the habit 
of drinking a large amount of the disease and death prevalent 
comes, and this can only be remedied by public effort. In 
case of a depression in our industries, labor would find employ- 
ment on these public works. It is not the opinion of the 
writer that depressions in trade would exist if the ideas sug- 
gested were carried out. Instead of seeking a market for our 
manufactured articles in foreign countries where we have to 
compete with pauper labor, we would find buyers at home, 
the laboring classes would be enabled to purchase comforts, 
and even luxuries, and thus create all the market we want. 

It will be seen that there are legitimate fields of expen- 
diture that will consume all the taxes likely to be collected, 
without having recourse to the very questionable expedient 
of per capita distributions. It undoubtedly will be a wiser 
plan to aid and encourage the working poor to be independent 
and self-supporting than to subsidize them. Let the law 
rigidly see that they get their own. There are many other 



464 REMEDIES. 

ways of aiding workingmen and building them up, besides 
paying an occasional small pittance from a fund outside of 
their earnings. From a careful observation of the subject it 
is the opinion of the writer that if the people of one of the 
most enterprising townships in New England had issued to 
them, say fifty dollars a year to every head of a family, for 
twenty or thirty years, it would ruin them. It may be as 
well to remember that Rome in the expiring days of the 
republic had distributions of money and corn. 

As a means of producing and maintaining a greater equality 
of interests, one of the most potent levers is to be found in a 
just system of inheritance. In adopting the ordinance for 
the Northwest territory, the Continental Congress, in this its 
first opportunity, struck a blow at the law of primogeniture. 
As the colonies, and after them the states, claimed the power to 
regulate that matter, it was about the only opportunity afforded, 
in an aggregate way, to the active founders of the American 
republic. It is to be regretted that they did not go farther. 
What they did was merely to provide that in cases where 
there was no will, the family property should descend equally 
to all the heirs, and that the widow should have one-third of 
the personal property and life rent in one-third of the real 
estate. This was unfair to the wife, the equal member of the 
firm, and in cases where there was but little property, left her 
weak when she most needed assistance, and virtually broke up 
her household. It also contained another vice, which, like 
the foregoing, had crept in a limited way into the polity of 
Western Europe, that assertion of extreme individualism 
which finds its exercise in will making. The attempt to 
dispose of property by will is an attempt to dispose of a thing, 
after the title is void in the proprietor. This is a subject that 
has engaged the attention of the wisest men of ancient and 
modern times. There are a few cases where the disposition 
of property by will may be wise and permissible, but they 
are rare. The power of any man to make a disposition of 



WILL MAKING AND INHERITANCE. 465 

any portion of the earth's surface after he has ceased to reside 
on the earth is a proposition which ought not to be tolerated. 
That a man should have power to make distinctions and 
classes in society, to create an aristocracy, to make some of his 
relatives rich and some poor, is a power, the justice of which 
may well be doubted. 

It will be observed that under our system of inheritance the 
authority over the property of a decedent is divided. The 
law makes one disposition, and the man before he dies crys- 
tallizes his will on paper and makes another. Some things the 
law says he shall not devise. It is, then, competent for law to 
say he shall not bequeath anything. There is a growing dispo- 
sition in our courts to set aside whimsical and unjust provisions 
of will. If a man with very considerable property decided at 
death that a great fortune should be left to one child, and a 
small amount to others, the general conviction would be that 
he had done wrong not only to his children but to society. 
In France, at the present day, a father can only will of his 
property what is equal to one child's share. Under the origi- 
nal Mahometan law no man was allowed to make a will. A 
just and intelligent law, fully considering the rights of the 
family and also the rights of society, is by far the best mode 
of determining the ownership of a dead man's property. 

There is nothing about which people are more jealous than 
the rights of property. From this comes the extreme modern 
assertion of individual authority, to do what a man pleases 
with his own while living, and make any ridiculous or unjust 
disposition of it after he is dead. Of purely personal articles 
we can conceive how disposition by will may be properly 
made. Where property is limited in amount and not more 
than would constitute a modest competence, the law should 
determine the question of inheritance in the family. Where 
a large fortune is left the rights of society should be considered. 
These could be asserted in a tax on inheritance for beneficial 
objects and charities, and this tax ought to be graded according 



4G6 REMEDIES. 

to the amount of property left. It should be one purpose of 
such a tax to prevent the creation of non-producing classes in 
the community, as no able-bodied man has a right to live with- 
out contributing by work to the interests of society. In wise 
laws of inheritance and taxation on inherited property, society 
has ample power to correct the wrongs and inequalities caused 
by avaricious men. If a man knew that his power over property 
would cease with his life, he would be apt to make a wise 
disposition of it while he lived • nor should he be permitted 
to evade the law of inheritance by giving great fortunes to his 
children just before his death, for such gifts ought to be sub- 
ject to the same rate of tax as inheritance. 

Whatever tenure or interest it is deemed best to give fam- 
ilies in improvements, or use of lands, small holdings can be 
best maintained for the public interest by just and discrimi- 
nating laws of inheritance. The evil of permitting long 
ground leases, the improvements erected thereon, and the in- 
creased value, to revert to descendants of the owners of the 
lands or lots, ought to be forbidden by law. The great fortune 
of the Duke of Westminster was created by leasing land 
in lots, near the suburbs of London, for one hundred 
years, the lessee to pay an annual rent, and the property, 
with the house that was on it, to revert at the expiration of 
the lease to the heir of the original owner. A grandson in 
this way inherited that which he never earned, and a great 
estate is thus built up by a contrivance which should never be 
tolerated. 

One of the necessary remedies to advance the condition of 
wage workers in towns and cities, is to provide means to build 
houses for them. As matters stand, a considerable part of their 
earnings are expended upon rent, and they are not comfortably 
housed. During the first half century of the republic a large 
majority of even the working classes had houses of their own. 
At present the laborer, with nothing but his wages to depend 
on, can neither buy a lot nor build a house. Speculative 



HOMES FOR WOEKINGMEN. 467 

prices and the inexorable demands of an artificial civilization 
have placed a home of his own beyond his reach. Some 
way must be found to furnish better houses to laboring men, 
and on terms they are able to pay. It is an unhappy circum- 
stance when the laboring and producing masses cannot have 
some spot of earth, and some building, however humble, that 
they can call home, without sitting under the shadow of a 
landlord. What a volume of terror there is in the word 
" rent," when that word means that for failure to pay it a 
man's family may be turned into the street. No plan of 
human polity is perfect, and no system of distribution just, 
or can endure, that does not contemplate and carry the means 
with it to provide homesteads for workingmen. Unhappy 
he, who, without fault of his own, finds all the earth built 
up and fenced up against him, and even the rivers dammed 
back to grind the grist of the few millers who have pre- 
empted their banks. Cottage homes with a spot of garden, 
however small, are the best, where a man can spend a little 
of his time in healthy exercise. Long rows of dirty tenement 
houses, with few and small rooms, low ceilings, bad ventilation 
and dilapidation, make the heart ache. If small cottages are 
impossible in great towns and cities, a system must be devised 
to place within the reach of all, homes, with at least good 
ventilation, decency and comfort. 

The question of homes for laboring men has for some 
time engaged the attention of British statesmen. It has 
become an important question in this country. The worst 
usurers and Shylock's of modern times may be found among 
the landlords of the tenement houses of the poor, who exact 
enormous rents for the most wretched accommodations. In 
this realm the doctrine of contracts rules supreme. Every- 
thing connected with tenements or lodgings for the work- 
ing classes should be regulated by statutes that cannot be 
invaded. Steps must be taken to aid and encourage the 
poorer laborers and artisans to acquire independent and com- 



468 REMEDIES. 

fortable homes, as far as possible under their own control and 
management. 

It has been the purpose of the writer to point out the two 
great causes of the impoverishment of the working classes, the 
monopoly of land, and the usurious profits of accumulated 
capital. In those two exhausting drains the workingman's 
share of the wealth of the world has been lost. Not until 
Christianity fully pervades our business and social system, 
and the doctrines of charity and brotherly love it preaches 
are accepted, can it overthrow the dominion of selfishness, 
avarice, and dishonest bargains. Until it does, law " by the 
people and for the people" can accomplish much. It is thus 
in the power of the people to correct the errors of the past, 
and shape the avenues to the great natural resources of our 
country, that they may be within the reach of all : giving an 
equality of privilege, and an equality of opportunity. It is 
the duty of " Law " to prevent a monopoly of " Land " as of 
all other monopolies, and thus afford just remuneration and 
a fair field to " Labor." Let it be our policy that the workers 
in the state shall be the first objects of its care, and should 
a dense population ever drive our rulers to encourage plans 
of emigration, let us see that the first emigrants are the non- 
producing classes. 



INDEX OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED AND USED IN 
LABOE, LAND AND LAW. 



Acland, Arthur H., Dyke Working- 
men Co-operators. 

Adams, John, Works of. 

Advertiser of Baltimore for Aug. 20, 
1773. 

American State Papers. 

Appleton, Encyclopedia Americana. 

Argyle, Duke of, Keign of Law. 

Argyle, Duke of, "Prophet of San 
Francisco" in Nineteenth Century 
for April, 1884. 

Atkinson, Edward, Distribution of 
Products. 

Auber'sRise British Power in India. 

Barnard, Charles, Co-operation as a 
Business. 

Bastiat, Frederick, Political Econ- 
omy — Wells' Trans. 

Bateman's Acreocracy of England. 

Battersby, T. S. Frank, Compensa- 
tion to Landlords. 

Bell's History of Feudalism. 

Bible. 

Bourne, E. J., History of the Sur- 
plus Revenue. 

Bowker, R. R., Work and Wealth. 

Broderick, Hon. George C, Reform 
of the English Land System. 

Buckle's History of Civilization. 



Byrd's Westover Manuscripts, 
tory of the Dividing Line. 



His- 



Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of 
Oliver Cromwell. 

Carlyle's French Revolution. 

Census, Tenth. 

Clarke, Edward H. G., Man's Birth- 
right. 

Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de, Embassy 
to the Court of Timour (Hak- 
luyt). 

Cobden Club, essays of. Systems 
of Land Tenure. 

Cook's China and Lower Bengal. 

Compendium Tenth Census. 

Consular Reports of United States. 

Crichton's History of Arabia. 

Crocker, Excessive Saving a Cause 
of Commercial Distress. 

Davis' History of the Caribbees. 
Donaldson's Public Domain. 
Doolittle's Social Life of the Chi- 
nese. 
Dow's History of Hindostan. 
Draper, Civil Policy of America. 

Fawcett's Economic Position of the 
British Laborer. 

469 



470 



INDEX OF AUTHORITIES. 



Federalist, The. 

Ferguson's History of the Roman 
Republic. 

Gallatin, Albert, Finances of the 
United States. 

George, Henry, Progress and Pov- 
erty. 

George, Henry, Our Land and Land 
Policy, State and National. 

Giffen's Progress of the Working 
Classes. 

Gray, John Henry, Laws, Manners 
and Customs of China. 

Grote's History of Greece. 

Guizot's History of Civilization. 

Hall & Kinney, Indian Tribes. 

Hallam, Middle Ages. 

Hamilton's Hedaya, Compendium 
of Mahometan Law. 

Hansard, British Parliamentary De- 
bates. 

Hanson, William, Fallacies in Pro- 
gress and Poverty. 

Hardwick, Christ and other Masters. 

Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. 

Heren's Ancient Nations of Africa. 

Helprin's Reference Book. 

Hellwald's Russia in Central Asia. 

Herodotus, Carey's Translation. 

Hobbes' Leviathan. 

Holmes' American Annals. 

Hoskyns, Sir Wren, Land in Eng- 
land, Land in Ireland, Land in 
Other Lands. 

Hunter, Dr., Report to the British 
Privy Council. 

Hutton's Central Asia. 

Jefferson's Works. 
Jennings' Antiquities of the Jews. 
Jevon's Political Economy. 
Jevon's State in Relation to Labor. 
Johns Hopkins' University Series. 



Kames, Lord, Antiquities. 
Kelley's History of Russia. 
Keltie, J. Scott, Statesman's Year 
Book 1885. 

Laveleye, Political Economy. 

Laveleye, Essays on the Land Sys- 
tems of Belgium and Holland. 

Lavergne, Rural Economy of Great 
Britain. 

Lawson's History North Carolina. 

Lecky's History of European Morals. 

Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World. 

Lowman's Civil Government of the 
Hebrews. 

Macleod, H. D., Elements of Eco- 
nomics. 
Madison's W T orks. 
Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, History 

of Early Institutions. 
Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, History 

Early Law and Custom. 
Mallock's Property and Progress. 
Malthus' Principles of Population. 
Maryland Journal and Baltimore 

Advertiser, 1773. 
Marco Polo. Wright's Edition 

Travels. 
May, Sir H., Democracy in Europe. 
Mclntyre, Aristocracy. 
Mill, John Stuart, Principles of 

Political Economy. 
Moody, William Goodwin's Land 

and Labor. 
Morse's Universal Gazetteer. 
Mul hall's Dictionary of Statistics 

for 1884. 
Mtiller, Max, Languages of the Seat 

of War. 
Miiller, Max, Chips from a German 

Workshop. 

Nevius' China. 






INDEX OF AUTHORITIES. 



471 



Ockley's History of the Saracens. 

Paine, Thomas, Eights of Man. 
Parsons' Remains of Japhet. 
Plutarch's Lives. 
Poor's Eailroad Manual. 
Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Raphael, History of the Jews. 

Rawlinson, George, History of 
Ancient Egypt. 

Rawlinson, George, Ancient Mon- 
archies. 

Rawlinson, George, Seventh Mon- 
archy. 

Rawlinson, George, Ancient Civili- 
zation. 

Redpath's, James, Notes on Ireland. 

Reports of Commissioner of General 
Land Office. 

Ricardo, Political Economy. 

Rogers, J. E. Thorold, Six Centuries 
of Work and Wages. 

Rogers, J. E. Thorold, Social Econ- 
omy. 

Rollin's Ancient History. 

Rubruquis' Travels. 

Shaw, Albert Icaria, A study in 

Communistic History. 
Sinding's History of Scandinavia. 
Smith's Life of Lewis Cass. 
Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations. 



Spofford's American Almanac, 1885. 
Stepniak's Russia under the Tzars. 
Stepniak's Underground Russia. 
Stone's Life of Brant. 
Strabo, Geographical and Historical 
• Works. 
St. Giles' Lectures. Faiths of the 

World. 
Sumner, Prof. Wm. Graham, What 

Social Classes Owe Each Other. 

Taine's French Revolution. 
Tenant Farmer, Short Talks about 
Land Tenure. 

Thiers' French Revolution, 
Timayeins' History of Greece. 

Vambery's History of Bokhara. 
Von Ranke, Universal History. 

Wallace, Alfred, Land Nationaliza- 
tion. 

Washington's Works and Letters. 

Williamson's History Tuscarora 
War. 

Williams' S. W., Middle Kingdom. 

Wine's Commentaries on the An- 
cient Laws of the Hebrews. 

Young, Arthur, Travels in Ireland. 
Young, Arthur, Travels in France. 
Young, Edward, Labor in Europe 
and America. 



Contemporary Socialism. 

BY JOHN RAE, M.A. 



One volume, crown 8vo, ----- $2.00. 



Such a book as this vihich Mr. Raehas written — a thorough history 
and analysis by a man of singularly candid and liberal mind, equally 
without prejudice and fanaticism — has long been needed and earnestly 
wished for by every student of socialism, and in all countries. The 
author writes with force and eloquence, but he looks at his subject in a 
clear, calm spirit, and penetrates it with greater subtil ity than any stu- 
dent or writer has done before. Among his chapters are admirably 
historical studies of the general subject and some vivid sketches of the 
leaders of the great mo\ements. In short, Mr. Rae has given us a 
masterly book, and it will long be read after the present Socialistic 
movements have become matters of history. 



"A useful and ably written book." — London Saturday Review. 

" No subject more needs thcr ugh and impartial discussion at pre- 
sent than this, and the work before us by John Rae is eminently able 
and helpful. It is distinguished in a remarkable degree by breadth of 
view and the grasp of underly ng and widely reaching principles, and also 
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the one hand, from democracy, which is essentially political, while 
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unpolitical or even anti-political, and, on the other hand, fiom Nihilism 
in its various form . His general view by wiy of introduction is all that 
could be desired, and certainly his sketches of the leaders, especially of 
Lasselle and Karl Marx, are marked by knowledge, insight and consider- 
able biographical tact." — British Quarterly Review. 



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The Country Banker. 

HIS CLIENTS, CARES, AND WORK. FROM THE EXPERL 
ENCE OF FORTY YEARS. 

BY GEORGE RAE, 

Author of "Bullion's Letters to a Bank Manager" 

With an American Preface by Brayton Ives. 



1 volume, 12mo, cloth, $1.50, 



" Mr. Rae may be congratulated on having produced a book which 
can be recommended to the student who wishes to gain an insight into 
the subject." — London Times. 

"We have seldom taken up a book on the business of banking 
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this of Mr. Rae's." — Economist. 

" The dry bones of banking theories and abstractions are here 
clothed with flesh and blood, and made to live and move full of life and 
animation." — Liverpool Mercury. 

" One of the most valuable additions to banking literature of late 
years." — Journal of the Lnstitu te of Bankers. 

" Mr. George Rae has, in the above book, contributed to banking 
literature .probably the best work that has ever been written on the sub- 
ject, not even excepting those of Mr. Gdbart " — Bullionist. 

" It is entirely free from pedantry and abounds in definitions sin- 
gularly terse and comprehensive." — Glasgozv News. 

" The subject may seem at the first glance to be a very dry one, but 
our author contrives to treat it in such a fashion as to make it exceedingly 
interesting. " — Scotsman. 

"A book of shrewdness, wit, and rare practical knowledge." — New 
York Tribune. 

" Wherever we have dipped into the contents of the book we have 
felt the invigorating influence of a master mind in banking craft." — The 
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" .... It crystallizes into sparkling forms the experiences of a long 
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A NEW AND REVISED EDITION, WITH FIGURES 
BROUGHT DOWN TO DATE OF 

United States Notes: 

A HISTORY OF THE V \RIOUS ISSUES OF PAPER MONEY 
BY 1HE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNlTtD STATES. 

With an Appendix containing the recent Decision of the Supreme Court 

of the United States, and the Dissenting Opinion upon the 

Legal Tender Question. 

By JOHN JAY KNOX, 

LATE COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY. 

One vol. 8vo, cloth ----- $2.50 

With Photo-lithographic Specimens and Forms of the various Notes. 



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"A full and well-arranged history of the paper currency of the 
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" A work of much value, and I know of nothing comparable to it, 
or that can supply its place. It is a timely and useful publication." — 
fustin S. Morrill, Chairman Finance Committee, Senate of the United 
States. 

" It is a very good document for reference, and sufficiently large to 
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"A valuable addition to financial literature." — Frank May, Chief 
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" Probably no man in the country is better qualified than John Jay 
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and best account of the distribution of the surplus in 1837 that has ever 
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Triumphant Democracy; 

or, 

FIFTY YEARS' MARCH OF THE 

REPUBLIC. 

BY ANDREW CARNEGIE. 



1 volume, 8vo, -,-_-. $2.0, 



Mr. Carnegie, though born in Scotland, and a firm lover of the 
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and a radical of the radicals in his advocacy of a government of the, 
people, by the people, and for the people. For royalty and its sur- 
roundings he has nothing but contempt, and his comparisons of 
monarchical forms and observances with republican simplicity and 
his scathing comments will be read with interest not only here but 
in England. Indeed, the work may be said to be intended primarily 
for British readers — to open the eyes of the masses in the United 
Kingdom to the wonderful advancement — physical, moral, political 
and intellectual — of the United States during the last half century, 
an advancement either little understood or wilfully misrepresented in 
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rate of progress, the principal one, in Mr. Carnegie's opinion, is the 
fundamental fact of the equality of the citizen in the Republic. To this 
grand principle all nations must eventually subscribe, he argues, and the 
sooner it is adopted by Great Britain the better for the countiy and the 
better for the people. Its author claims that it is pure missionary work 
on his part, and that his sole desire in its preparation has been to show 
his countrymen — and to prove by solid facts and figures — the superiority 
of republican over monarchical institutions. This is the true inwardness 
of his book and of its title -'Triumphant Democracy." 



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©ota's JIBobprn yijifosoplg, 

FROM DESCARTES TO SCHOPENHAUER AND HARTMANN. 
By FRANCIS BOWEN, A.M., 

Author of " Amer'-'an Political Economy!" and Al/ord Professor of Natural 
Religion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. 



One volume 8vo. Cloth, 



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the strongest common sense." — Christian at Work. 

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BOWEN'S AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY 

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GLEANINGS FROM A LITERARY LIFE. 

One volume 8vo.. $3.00. 

Prof. Bowen has gathered together in this volume a number o. 
exceedingly instructive essays, upon subjects with which he is pre- 
eminently fitted to deal. Several of these essays discuss matters of public 
interest in connection with our national finances, a question to which 
Prof. Bowen has given special study, and which he has already treated in 
his American Political Economy. Other essays are upon philosophical 
themes, notably the one on the Idea of Cause ; still others cover ground 
of more general interest, e. g , "Classical and Utilitarian Studies," 
" The Latest Form of the Development Theory," "Blaise Pascal," and 
" The Restoration of the Text of Shakspere." 

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A New Edition , Library Style. 



©5? Jjsforg of {Romp, 

FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE. 

By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEtf. 

Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regius 
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner of 
the University of St. Andrews. With an introduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, and 
a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. 

REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION. 
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Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his re- 
searches into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and 
Italy, as the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these depart- 
ments of historical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive 
knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a 
vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow- 
ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value 
possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com- 
monwealth. "Dr. Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the 
introduction, " though the production of a man of most profound and ex- 
tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for 
the professional scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take 
an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek 
information that may guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of 
modern history." 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" A work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full 
of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on 
record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Commonwealth." — London Times. 

" This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole — the 
y.ithor's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his 
graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest 
which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere. '"• 
— • Edinburgh Review. 

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A New Edition, Library Style. 



Wfi IftsfoFg of (Jpfprp. 

By Prof. Dr. ERNST CTJETIUS. 

Translated by Adolphus William Ward, M.A., Fellow of St. Peter*s College, Cam. 
bridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester. 

UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME. 
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Curtius's History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's 
History of Rome, with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of 
the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de- 
tails which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very 
picturesque manner all the important events in the history of this king- 
dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's 
civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius's work is flowing and ani- 
mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are philosophical and 
sound. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" Professor Curtius's eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness 
of his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrat- 
ing them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Prof. Curtius everywhere 
maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are 
on the side of justice, humanity, and progress." — London Atheneeutn. 

" We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius's book better than by saying that it may 
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator. 

"As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the 
age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 

" The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of 
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct- 
ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts 
for their education. This translation ought to become a regular part of the accepted course 
of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political 
life of our country." — N. Y. Evening Post. 

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pprrg's yoliHral ^rononig. 

A POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR BEGINNERS. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

By Prof. ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, 

Of Williams' College; author of ^ Elements of Political Economy." 
One vol. i2mo. cloth, $1.50. 
Prof. Perry's Elements of Political Economy has long held the leading 
place in our colleges and high schools as a text-book upon the science of 
which it treats. There has been a general demand, however, for a more 
concise work — one which should present the principles of Political Economy 
in a form which can be easily grasped and mastered by those who wish to 
get directly at the foundation of the science. This work supplies the 
want. It is not strictly a school-book, but it is both intelligible and 
scientific, brief and complete. At the same time it is not in any sense 
an abridgment or condensation of the Elements, nor is it at all designed 
to supersede it. It is an entirely independent aud original work. The 
simplicity and clearness with which it presents principles and facts, which 
have to a great extent been regarded as too abstruse for popular compre- 
hension, must carry this study into schools where it has heretofore been 
neglected. 

"We commend it unhesitatingly as the work of a sound thinker and a clear writer, who 
is master of his theme." — The Congregatioualist. 

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political science have approved." — New York Eve. Post. 

"There is no subject which, at the present time, in view of the animated and far- 
reaching discussions as to questions of money, taxation and trade, it is desirable should 
be more generally read and discussed, and this compact presentation of facts and 
principles will be found no less interesting than valuable. " — New York World. 

PERRY'S ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

New Edition, Revised by the Author. 

This treatise presents views favorable to the utmost freedom of com- 
merce compatible with legitimate revenue from tariff taxes It is a 
standard text-book in all our colleges throughout the country. One 
vol. i2mo, cloth. 487 pages, price $2.50. 

" Your book interests students more than any other I have ever instructed from."— 
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"Asa manual .or general reading and popular instruction, Prof. Perry's book is fat 
Euperior to any work on the subject before issued in the United States." — N. Y. Timet 

"We cordially recommend this book to all, of whatever school of political economy, 
who enjoy candid statement and full and logical discussion." — N. Y. Nation. 

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